Dolce Far Niente, or Sweet Idleness
by LarkSwoon
Summary: The world's greatest detective, dangerously close to being murdered by Kira, faces his most difficult emotional challenge yet: falling in love. An L x Ami story.
1. Delay

"Last night, when I closed my notebook and took a nap, I had a dream. His figure was vague, and I couldn't see well, but... On his light brown skin, a white T-shirt, and long and slender jeans on his legs. A wonderful man. I feel a premonition of love. But then he vanished into the twilight, as if he was swept away by the wind." – Ami Mizuno, monologue, _Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon: In Another Dream_

Delay

In the dark of a small room, empty and cool but for the warmth of computers, an old man was surprised by the sound footsteps behind him. He turned in his chair to see a young man, head hung in a hunched posture, with his hands in his pockets. The light from the computer monitors was only enough to illuminate some of his face, but the old man knew well who the young man was, even though he stood just at the edge of the light.

"What's the matter, Ryuzaki?"

The young man made no reply.

"What's the matter?"

"Watari."

"Yes? What is it?"

"We are almost finished with the investigation. It will not be long now," said the young man, hardly breaking a monotone, "but we still have work to do."

The old man remained silent and contemplated the reason for Ryuzaki coming to see him face to face instead of simply using the phone or sending a message from the computer in his own room. He waited for Ryuzaki to continue, knowing the young man was not one to make an unnecessary trip. In fact, apart from briefly examining this computer room when the workstation was first installed, Ryuzaki had not stepped foot in this room, though Watari had spent most of his waking hours for the past months in the dungeon-like chamber.

"Do you remember the instructions I gave you regarding the electronic data stored in this building?"

"Of course."

"Good." Ryuzaki's feet remained fixed in their spots while his head lowered and a thumb rose to rest momentarily between his teeth. "Please send word out to the American wardens. I will need two prisoners scheduled to be executed, thirteen days apart. We will also need to make arrangements for them to receive a deal similar to the one we offered Lind L. Tailor."

"I will do so immediately," the old man answered. He waited in the quiet dark for a moment, listening to the cooling fans of the computers. "Ryuzaki?"

"Yes?"

"Do you need something else?"

Ryuzaki made no reply but bit slightly harder into the tip and nail of his thumb.

"Is something wrong?"

"I am also hungry."

"I can bring you something after I contact the prisons," Watari said, still wondering why Ryuzaki had come in person. "I can bring it to your room, or shall I bring it to the main room?"

Another idle moment passed in quietness as Ryuzaki turned his head aside pensively. "Neither," he said finally. "I'm going out this morning. I will be back before the afternoon. Please do not tell the others I've gone."

"You're going out?"

"Yes. To get something to eat."

"I see."

Watari studied the shadowed face of the young man. Having known Ryuzaki nearly his entire life, the old man could not help but feel somewhat ill at ease at the young man's uncharacteristic behavior: not only coming to see him in person to say nothing he could not have communicated barely moving in his seat, but now he had declared he was going out to eat. In all the years of working as the young man's assistant and handler, he had never known the detective to take time away from an investigation to eat out. Typically, the young man would go almost without sleep, working tirelessly to solve cases. At such a crucial time in the most challenging case they had ever worked, Ryuzaki's behavior was not only odd but disconcerting in its inexplicability.

"Where are you going exactly?" asked Watari, not wanting to overtly declare the extent of his concern. "In case something happens," he added vaguely.

"I am going to see what I can find," Ryuzaki cryptically explained. "I will have a phone with me, of course, if an occasion should arise that demands my immediate attention – but until we have access to those inmates, there is little we can do. Higuchi is dead; there is no one to interrogate. Our only workable clue is the notebook itself. I intend to test it. I cannot do that without someone dying, so until the wardens find volunteers, there is no hurry."

With or without urgency and immediacy, the young man seemed more phlegmatic than usual. He stood fast in the penumbra. Despite Ryuzaki already having given instructions, Watari continued to gaze at him, waiting for him to speak again, to hear the real reason why he'd come to the room. The explanation seemed poised to emerge from Ryuzaki any coming second. Deep in thought, he again lifted his thumb to his mouth, bit the tip. No explanation came. Ryuzaki turned and walked into the umbra, to the door and out.

"Goodbye."

* * *

Retrieving only a disposable cell phone, a pocketful of cash, and a pair of hardly-broken-in sneakers from his room, the world's greatest detective boarded the first bus he located after walking several blocks from the task force headquarters. As he slouched through the streets and as he sat on the bus, his eyes darted around at the other people in Tokyo, walking and sitting more straightly than he. Salarymen moved swiftly and efficiently to office buildings, toting briefcases and straightening neckties. Police sat idly but on duty in boxes. Peacefully and quietly, human life coursed around him, and Ryuzaki, sloppily dressed and without any clear purpose but to locate an appealing bakery or café, felt alienated amid the docile masses.

Committing his path to memory, after a few stops, he disembarked the bus, walked a few blocks, and boarded another bus, repeating this pattern several times until he had little idea of his whereabouts except the bus route. Each bus he rode bore a nearly identical assortment of people: businessmen, clerks, laborers, who checked their watches casually, contemplating the day's work. Gazing languorously out a window at a lightly trafficked sidewalk, Ryuzaki wondered how many of the people around him secretly and silently cheered on the killer he was hunting, how many were secretly terrified a heart attack would be the price of their guilty consciences.

He stared obtusely at a middle-aged man in a pinstriped business suit in a window seat, adjusting his glasses to read a newspaper. Ryuzaki considered, not lamenting his position and circumstances, whether the man felt secure in his future, whether he felt he could make it through the day without his heart stopping, whether the thought crossed his mind. He wondered about the terror of living for the average citizen in a world where wrong-doers fell victim to ostensibly divine judgment. Did he commit tiny sins and rub his chest in silent worry that one day, sooner or later, he too would be judged unfit? Did he know it was not God who played judge but a petulant childish murderer? In this own admitted childish streak, Ryuzaki balled a fist with indignation against his opponent, wanting to be the one to defeat the supernatural terrorist. Equal to his desire to win, however, was the sunken feeling under his ribs, which relaxed his hand from a fist to a bony cage over his knee. He acknowledged to himself that he was not thinking clearly at the moment, that he was, as Matsuda had observed the previous day, "kind of out of it." When rolling dice made of your own bones and staking your life, there is no avoiding a sense of impending loss.

As the young man pressed his lips with his thumb in thought, the man in the business suit looked up to notice his observer, and Ryuzaki, undeterred, continued to stare until the man hunched his shoulders and raised his open newspaper to conceal his face. At this and the sudden stopping of the bus, the detective stood from his squat on a bus seat and left the bus. Not halting the momentum of his disembarking stroll, he continued up the sidewalk, head hung but eyes raised to watch for bakeshops. Far from the vapidity of the task force headquarters, he found himself walking on streets lined with greenery, growing and full of vim. Finally yielding to his appetite in these pleasant streets, he strolled up a small flight of brick stairs into a café, where he was briskly greeted by a smiling waitress in an apron. The café was almost empty; it was still early for a weekend. There were only a few boys around twelve or thirteen drinking shakes and laughing loudly and a table full of teenage girls dressed in bright colors in a rear booth.

After telling him he could sit anywhere he liked, the waitress followed him to a small booth and presented him with a menu, which he rapidly, almost violently, perused. As she began to turn and leave to allow him a chance to decide, Ryuzaki spoke without looking up from the unfolded menu, which he held by its upper corners. "Please wait," he said softly. "I would like each of your flavors of pudding, a slice of your strawberry shortcake, a banana sundae, and a cup of coffee. A plate of red bean cakes and a slice of cheesecake, too, please."

Hesitating but understanding the order, the waitress offered a polite smile and replied, "Certainly." She quickly moved for the bakery display and coffee percolators.

By the time she had prepared each of his requests and arranged them on a large tray to deliver them, several minutes had passed during which time the phone in Ryuzaki's pocket came alive with an electronic ring. Since only Watari had the number, Ryuzaki immediately flipped the phone open and held it to his ear.

"Yes?"

"Ryuzaki, I sent word out to the wardens as you requested, and there are inmates in Texas and Florida who may fit the criteria you set. But there is a problem."

"What is it?"

"I contacted the governors' offices in those two States, and both of them informed me that at this time their States' governors are unwilling to propose to alter any mode of execution or offer commutation of a death sentence."

"Why the change in attitude since the beginning of the Kira investigation?"

"There is a case that has reached the United States Supreme Court regarding the constitutionality of certain modes of execution. There is an ongoing debate about the amount of pain caused during an execution. Right now, no state government wishes to dirty their hands by offering a deal such as ours to a death row inmate at a time like this. They are concerned with the message it will send. They're afraid making an arrangement like this will be seen as an assertion of State rights over federal rulings. Some States have already postponed executions until after the ruling is over. Once the case clears the Court, however the Justices rule, both governors will likely be willing to assist us. For now, they consider such dealings untimely."

"What you mean is that they're cowards who refuse to stake their reputations against possibly appearing to flout the Supreme Court's authority. They would rather wait it out and make sure they stand a chance to be reelected than take on Kira now."

"What shall we do now, Ryuzaki?"

"Nothing for now," Ryuzaki muttered. "Until we can test the notebook, we have reached an impasse. We will continue to research criminals killed by Kira, but at this stage, the decisive information we need must come from testing the rules of the notebook themselves."

"Understood."

With that, Ryuzaki shut the phone and replaced it in his pocket, just in time for the waitress to return with his large order of sweets on a large tray. The young detective thanked her as she transferred each of the many dishes onto the tabletop in front of him. With a quick and polite bow, she took her leave back toward the kitchen with the oversized tray. Ryuzaki immediately rested his bare feet on the edge of the table and began dropping a copious amount of sugar cubes into his cup. As he stirred the cup, he heard a cry from several tables away:

"Wow! That's incredible!"

Over the back of a booth seat, a teenaged girl had propped her head up, her blue eyes wide and fixed on the prodigious load of confections on Ryuzaki's table. Her mouth was agape in awe of the sweets, and she stuttered as she began speaking, seemingly flabbergasted at the volume of the food.

"Are you going to eat all of that yourself?" she asked, adopting a charming countenance of childish desire, as she waved a pointed finger at the sweets. "If you can't finish it all, maybe I could help you." She quickly folded her hands as if begging and locked eyes with Ryuzaki. "So it doesn't go to waste," she added grinningly.

The girl's blond hair, which was done up in two long tails flowing from small buns atop her head, had dropped down over her shoulders and over the back of the booth seat, giving her the appearance, with her hands folded so meekly, of a nun longing for a divine provision of beatitude engendered only by masses of sugary foods. Ryuzaki stonily shifted his eyes from her yearning face to his five glass bowls of pudding, slice of shortcake, dish of bananas and ice cream, five red bean cakes, and slice of cheesecake. His evaluation expressionless though not uninfluenced by his quiet sympathy for the poor girl's indigence of sweets, he considered the possibility that he had indeed ordered too much. Simultaneously, the emptiness in his chest and stomach, not hunger alone, demanded satiation, and he could scarcely think of a better way to relief than through this preponderance of food.

"I doubt I'll finish all of it," Ryuzaki admitted in summary of his thoughts, monotonely but matter-of-factly, "but I am very hungry." His eyes glanced behind the girl, to her two friends sitting with her, who all bore nervous, embarrassed smiles.

One of her friends, a girl with long and boldly dark violet hair, arched her brow slightly and scolded her: "Usagi-chan, leave the man alone."

"I wasn't bothering him!" she exclaimed, turning back to face her companion. "But he has so much!" She thrust a finger at the assortment of fare on Ryuzaki's table as if it were irrefutable evidence of her innocence.

At this haughty insistence, the violet-haired girl grew hot and retorted, "Just let him eat in peace!"

The tall girl sitting between the blond-haired girl and violet-haired girl at this point decided to intervene. She raised a soothing hand toward both her friends and said to the blond-girl, who seemed on the verge of tears from the light besetment, "Usagi-chan, I can make cookies and a cake once we're at Haruka-san's apartment. How does that sound?"

The with rapidity Ryuzaki thought possibly pathological, the blond crybaby Usagi suddenly shifted moods into chipper glee, tears gone from her eyes, pout superseded by a joyful smile. The sated girl turned back to her Ryuzaki for a moment to say, "Okay, you can have all of it after all!" She then returned to her friends and began chatting animatedly as she had before noticing Ryuzaki's overlarge meal, and Ryuzaki, pleased that the three girls had retuned to normality and minding their own business without any need of him doing anything, lifted a red bean candy to his mouth and took a satisfying bite.

* * *

The girls continued to chat, friendly and lively, until after Ryuzaki had finished the better part of his ordered sweets and three cups of coffee. After paying his bill with a crumpled pile of one-thousand yen notes, he slipped his feet from the seat cushion under the table, tucking his toes into his sneakers. He then rose and made for the door, feeling full but unsatisfied. The shadowy feeling in his chest had not abated. Despite his lack of relief, Ryuzaki thought it best to return to the task force headquarters, where the team would wonder where he had been all morning.

In the doorway of the café, he passed a young man and a woman, arm in arm, who had just gotten out of a bright yellow sports car parked out front on the street. "Don't be too long!" the man called out from the door to a girl, about the age of the three inside with whom he briefly interacted, who was lifting a handbag and a stack of books from the backseat of the yellow convertible.

"Okay!" the girl energetically replied, as she hoisted a textbook into a cradling arm.

As Ryuzaki ambled passed her on the sidewalk, headed for the bus stop to take the convoluted route back to headquarters, a quick gust bereft a felt beret from the girl's head of blue-colored hair. She let out a squealing gasp as the wind took the hat sailing, and the sound she made was enough to steal Ryuzaki's attention from his thoughts. His head jolted around to see her chasing the airborne beret, and with a single swipe of a deft hand, he snatched the hat from the air. In his bony hand, he held it out to her.

"Thank you so much!" she exclaimed, struggling to take hold of the beret with her hands full of books and a bag.

Seeing her difficulty, he reached up and replaced the beret gently on her head and adjusted it to its proper position. He returned his hands to his pants pockets and noticed an expression of mild surprise on her face, accompanied by a pair of cheeks flushed pink.

"Thank you," she very nearly whispered.

Ryuzaki's eyes drifted downward from her face, and the girl, thinking the slouching and disheveled young man was eyeing her chest, blushed a deeper shade of red, before he read from the spines of her books: "_Murder on D Slope_, Spinoza's _On the Improvement of the Understanding_, _Gray's Anatomy_, and _Goedel's Proof_." His tone was a balance of admiration and disbelief.

"Y-yes." She did not know what to make of this man, helpful but uncouth.

"Are all of these yours?"

"Yes."

"You're studying to be a doctor?"

"Yes," she nearly gasped. "How did you know?"

"The spine of _Gray's Anatomy_ is most worn of all books," he explained. "Are you a university student?"

Meekly, she answered, "Second year of high school." She seemed embarrassed by this fact.

"Amazing," Ryuzaki said flatly. "What do you think of Spinoza?"

Her face tightened and paled slightly. Unsure of whether this question was some sort of test of her intellect, her demeanor snapped into defensive, but a sincerity or simple curiosity she detected in the languor of the man's eyes softened her. Blushing again, she answered honestly, "The idea that God is a harmony visible through the natural world is appealing and sweet."

"Sweet," he echoed without a tinge of judgment.

"Some of his thoughts compete with modern quantum mechanics, but…." she began but trailed off into embarrassed oblivion. The corners of the young man's mouth were raised, and a thin index finger was pressed against his lips, though she was unsure at what exactly he was pleased.

Before he spoke another word, the man from earlier leaned out of the café door and called out, "Ami-chan, are you coming?"

"Yes!" she called back, beginning to jog to the door, not saying goodbye to the awkward lank young man. She vanished into the café with her books and her bag in her arms, her hat securely on her head, and her face flushed with red.

On the street, Ryuzaki spent a moment perplexed at the anxious flutter in his chest, swollen against the persistent sunken feeling, before he turned and began making his way back to task force headquarters. On the returning buses, his thoughts could not remain on the investigation and drifted repeatedly and consistently back to the girl outside the café – her deep blue eyes full of wonder and sincerity and intelligence. Ryuzaki squatted awkwardly on a bus seat, wrapped his knees with his hands, and recalled the softness of hair against fingers when he had placed her hat on her head. Her attention, her eclectic expertise, her acuity, the pink in her cheeks – Ryuzaki gazed from bus windows and remembered these things without critical judgment; he simply remembered and remembered and remembered, and he forgot for a time the hollowness under his ribs. Ami was her name? Second year of high school? She should be easy enough to research.


	2. Bells Ring Ryuzaki's Dilemma

The Bells Ring – Ryuzaki's Dilemma

Through the mechanical doors of the task force headquarters main room, Ryuzaki entered to see Matsuda, Mogi, Ide, Aizawa, Soichiro Yagami, and Light Yagami, all gathered and poring over documents or gazing into computer screens. Standing in the room, overlooking the humans, was the shinigami Rem, whose white and skeletal body remained nearly motionless.

In spite of it only being a few hours into the morning, Light was visibly stressed and deep in thought as he stood over the table in the center of the room, reading from the inside cover of the notebook. As Ryuzaki ambled into the room, Light's head popped up in surprise.

"Ryuzaki, where have you been?"

"I have been out," he replied.

"Don't tell me you were following a lead on your own, in person."

"No," Ryuzaki began, moving alongside Light to examine the notebook as well. "I was merely hungry and felt like eating out." He took the notebook's corners between his fingers and lifted it in front of his face for a closer look.

"Felt like eating out!" exclaimed Light, clearly irritated. "Isn't it dangerous for you to show your face outside? We already know that Kira might not need a name to kill, only a face. Do you want to get yourself killed, Ryuzaki?" Light's agitation drew the attention of the rest of the task force, all of whom had looked away from their work to see Light admonishing Ryuzaki.

Soichiro Yagami looked on his son with some astonishment that he was bold enough to so openly scold the world's greatest detective, but he could not help but feel a sense of relief that Light showed such hot concern for the safety of Ryuzaki, his worry implying his interest in ensuring Ryuzaki's life was not unduly endangered – a worry that would not be shared by Kira. Though he knew this outburst was no definitive indication that Light was not Kira, for Light's father, it confirmed what he already felt to be true: his son was not a murderer.

"You're overreacting, Yagami-kun," Ryuzaki said blandly. "Even if Kira doesn't need a name to kill, he does not know that I am L, does he? He wouldn't know to kill me even if I stood right in front of him." Ryuzaki set down the killing notebook on the table again, open to back cover, where two rules of notebook were written. "Unless I were standing in front of Misa Amane. That would be much different."

"Amane?" spat Aizawa, full of indignation. "You're still convinced that Amane is involved? Ryuzaki, you need to let go of your stubborn thinking."

"Yes, of course," the detective conceded suddenly. He turned and took a seat at a computer, squatting on a chair with his knees drawn up to his chest as usual. "I am sorry." The hollow feeling from earlier this morning had returned since he walked into task force headquarters, though he had not wholly ceased thinking about the blue-haired girl he had met on the sidewalk. With a few clicks of a computer mouse, Ryuzaki brought a map of Tokyo to the screen in front of him.

Light quickly moved up behind him and placed a hand on the back of Ryuzaki's seat. "I'm the one who's sorry, Ryuzaki," he said, calmer now. "Misa doesn't have anything to do with the Kira case, though. And we don't know who has the other notebook, and we don't know his powers."

"That's true," said Ryuzaki, without taking his eyes from the screen. His eyes traced across the bus routes he took this morning. Reconstructing his journey to the café from his cognitive map, he was quickly able to learn the name of the district in which he ate and had the fortuitous meeting with that girl: Azabu Juuban. "So far, Kira has killed sixteen people since Higuchi's death. Is that right?"

"That's right." Never having been sincerely angry at Ryuzaki for leaving task force headquarters in the first place, Light was quickly able to shift his attention to the investigation. "What's on your mind?"

"Bring me a list of the criminals Kira has killed, please."

"Sure."

Light quickly moved to fetch a file folder containing information on each of the slain criminals. In silence and secret, he wondered what thought had occurred to Ryuzaki. He had anticipated L's every move, but he couldn't help feel a slight whisper of anxiety as Ryuzaki stared at the map of Tokyo on his computer screen. There would be no discernable pattern in the killings that L could detect, as long as Misa followed his instructions, and not all of the criminals had been killed in Japan. In fact, none of them – as far as he could recall – were killed in Tokyo. As Light handed Ryuzaki the file folder, he looked once again at the detective's computer screen, seeing it narrowed on the Azuba Juuban district. What bizarre tangent of thought was Ryuzaki bothering to entertain?

There was nothing in Juuban. He had killed no criminals there when he possessed the notebook, and Misa had killed no one there. Even with the folder containing the profiles of the criminals in his hands, Ryuzaki was transfixed on the map on the computer monitor. He remained staring at the screen for several seconds before finally opening the folder and perusing the documents therein.

Even now as he examined the names and records of the criminals murdered by Kira, his mind was cluttered with extraneous and distracting thoughts. Gazing intensely at two sheets of notes taken by Aizawa and Mogi on these criminals and the circumstances of their deaths, Ryuzaki's typically fluent thoughts arrived sluggishly. The whirr of computer fans and the tapping of keys being punched by rapid fingertips quieted and dissolved into nearly total silence. It was raining outside – beginning to rain, when Ryuzaki entered this morning – and he thought he could hear the rain now, in this windowless room, and through the rain, bells rang. The deep tolling echoed over him like a wash of warm water. Before his eyes, there was a multicolored light, as if passing stained glass. Amidst the _belleza_ of bells and gentle light, Ryuzaki's throat grew tight, his chest empty again. As he realized slowly that he was sitting in the task force headquarters, that he must be there, the warm light was dislimned, and his sight grew clearer on the two sheets of white paper in his hands. While he looked again over the typed text on the pages, the meaning of the words escaped him; all meaning was replaced by a single repetitive thought.

"Yagami-kun."

Light looked up from the desk where he sat, again examining the notebook, searching through the many names written inside. "Hm? What is it, Ryuzaki?"

"Why do you think Kira has suddenly reappeared?"

Briefly uncertain how precisely to answer Ryuzaki's question, Light turned his chair to face his questioner, and contemplated his response. "It's difficult to say. We do know there is at least one more notebook in the human world: the notebook used by the Second Kira, unless the notebook we have here is the Second Kira's notebook, in which case the one we don't have is the notebook of the first Kira." Light figured that this answer was satisfactory because, after all, there was no way L would be able to deduce with any certainty that Kira had returned because Misa was acting in his stead.

"Assuming that the only humans with killing notebooks are Kira and the Second Kira, we can assume there are a total of four such notebooks in the human world at present: one in our custody; one owned by the shinigami Rem, who is here; one in the hands of the Kira currently killing; and one owned by the shinigami who provided the notebook for the present Kira."

"That seems correct, Ryuzaki," Light agreed. "What are you thinking?"

Ryuzaki set the pages of the file back into their folder and shut it. "Nothing in particular," he flatly answered. "We are at an impasse, it seems. As much as I have resolved to catch the person who is using the notebook now…."

Ryuzaki, thought Light, I didn't think you'd be so weak, especially at a time like this. "Don't be discouraged, Ryuzaki. We can still catch him; we just need to be patient and careful."

"Yes, that's true."

The bells tolled once again in Ryuzaki's ears, as he turned away from Light, back toward his computer. Still on the screen was the map of Juuban. The bells quieted as he thought again of the girl with the armful of books, her cheeks flushed as she talked of Spinoza, knowing enough to relate him to quantum mechanics. Amazing. As he could glean no more information from the map alone, he removed it from the screen and began several searches through the internet.

Using the given name Ami and the fact she was currently a second year high school student, Ryuzaki searched the history of high school entrance exams in the area of Juuban. In just a few minutes of following the information, he had several pictures of her and a good deal of information: Ami Mizuno was her name, and she was a top-scoring student in all subjects, a chess prodigy, and a computer expert. She was not especially active on social networking sites and did not post much personal information on the internet – not very much, at least, in association with her name. Anonymity on the internet was imperfect in its ability to conceal one's identity, however.

After briefly considering hacking the IP address logs of the single social networking site on which Mizuno had posted, Ryuzaki instead opted to examine the vast internet activity of a linked friend, Minako Aino. In the course of her detailed journals, Aino made mention of her friend – whom she referred to as Ami-chan – writing poetry, and Aino had, in fact, posted a small sample of poetry supposedly written by Mizuno. Conducting searches for duplicate postings of these lines of verse, Ryuzaki was quickly able to locate a user under the name Mercury who had posted the same poem, along with others, on a site devoted to sharing creative writing.

Ryuzaki spent several minutes reading poem after poem written by Mercury, whom he had deduced to be Mizuno. The complexity of language, sensitivity to detail, and crystalline knowledge demonstrated in the writing provided convergent evidence that Mercury and Mizuno were one in the same. Even in his brief meeting with her, Ryuzaki had been able to detect her uncanny and prodigious intelligence. The vastness of her intellect was evident in her poetry; moreover, it was beautiful. With a thumb pressed against his lips, Ryuzaki gazed at the screen of his computer in unmitigated admiration of what he read. He thought again of her cheeks flushed with red and could not resist a small grin behind his thumb.

"What the hell are you looking at, Ryuzaki?"

Standing over him, peering over his head and shoulders at the computer, was Light Yagami, whose face was not quite aghast but undoubtedly perplexed.

"Yagami-kun," Ryuzaki began, his face dropping into its typical blankness, "have you ever clicked hyperlinks on Wikipedia until you found yourself on a page totally unrelated to that in which you were originally interested?" Ryuzaki looked back at the poems on the screen. He could hear the bells once again ringing from beyond his words. "I believe something similar has happened here," he lied.

"Well, whatever the case, you should get back to the investigation." Light began walking back to the desk at which he was working before, secretly concerned that L was taking far too long to approach the investigation with enough tenacity to force Rem to kill him in order to protect Misa. Light shut his eyes and tried to calm his mind. Don't worry. It's only a matter of time until Ryuzaki decides to test the notebook. That's his only move. He's just a little distracted; that's all.

Light peeked over his shoulder to see Ryuzaki still looking at the webpage of poems, eyes wide and expression blank.

This might take longer than expected.

* * *

Haruka Tenoh's apartment was filled with the scent of baking cookies, much to the pleasure of the several girls and one young man present. In the kitchen, Makoto Kino cradled a heavy mixing bowl in a sturdy arm and blended cake batter with a large spoon. Watching her friend, with her head resting easily and lazily on the marble countertop, Usagi Tsukino smiled in admiration.

"It's going to be wonderful, Mako-chan," she said wistfully, closing her eyes in pleasant expectation. "Cake and cookies – you're the best at baking!"

"I'm not the best," Makoto modestly replied, face flushing slightly.

"Hey, Mako-chan, that smells great," said Haruka as she entered the kitchen. In her arms, she held a paper shopping bag. She set it down on the counter near Makoto before smilingly taking a large breath through her nose of scent of the baking cookies. "I might have to keep you around all the time to fill my place with sweetness."

"H-haruka-san…." At this remark, Makoto flushed a deeper shade of red, and even Usagi felt embarrassed to have heard Haruka's compliment.

In an effort to assuage the awkwardness, Usagi piped up: "Say, Haruka-san, is Setsuna-san coming too?"

"Yeah, she'll be a little late coming, since she has to finish some things at the university," Haruka explained as she began unpacking the shopping bag of a carton of eggs, a bottle of milk, a sack of flour, and numerous other baking ingredients. "She'll be here by the time the cake is finished," she continued, with a wink to Usagi. "She wouldn't miss the first time we've all been together in so long – under pleasant circumstances, I mean."

Leaning against the frame of the kitchen doorway, Michiru Kaioh offhandedly remarked, "It's good not to have our duties hanging over our heads for a change, eh?"

"Yeah," Usagi began, with an expression of uncertainty, "but what about all those murders? Those criminals…."

"It's not an evil force from outside the solar system," Michiru declared, "or Haruka and I would have sensed it. And it's not a threat from within the solar system, or you and Luna and the others would have sensed a new enemy. It's something else completely." She folded her arms and stroked the sleeve of her shirt, not entirely satisfied with her own answer, but accepting of the situation.

"I don't like saying it's not our problem," Haruka said, only half-attending the conversation as she stowed milk and eggs in the refrigerator, "but we can't solve all the Earth's problems. That's not our job. Besides, the police and that detective L seem to have the situation in hand. They better have done something right to have closed down the highway a few nights ago and spoiled my ride." Standing and shutting the door to the fridge, she smirked to signal her facetiousness.

"I guess so," Usagi conceded. "I just wish we could stop it."

Interrupting the conversation before Haruka or Michiru could reply, from the living room came a call from Ami Mizuno, "Haruka-san! Could you please come here?"

"Yeah, sure," Haruka called back, marching into the living room with her hands in her pockets.

Ami sat on the floor, with her back pressed against the wall, near small coils of electronic cable, open packaging, and a new router plugged into the nearby modem. She smiled politely as Haruka approached. "You need a password for your wireless network," she explained. "Here. You can type it in." She held up the notebook computer that was sitting on her lap.

"Nah," Haruka dismissed. "Just use Michiru's name. That way I'll remember it."

Ami giggled and nodded. With rapid keystrokes, she entered the password to secure Haruka's new wireless network behind the protection of Michiru's name. As Haruka returned to the kitchen, Ami finished configuring the network for Haruka's use. Then, to test it, she opened the browser on her laptop and loaded her email. The network connection working perfectly and quickly, her inbox appeared in a flash, showing a single new message: an alert of a private message on the creative writing site on which she occasionally posted her poems. Expecting nothing more than a terse note remarking on her writing, she was surprised to find a much more elaborate message:

* * *

Mizuno-san,

Please pardon my intrusiveness, but I have taken great interest in your incredible mental abilities. The expanse of you intellect is matched only by your articulateness and creativity. You have my sincere admiration, as you possess one of the most impressive intellects I have ever beheld.

Not only are your academic accomplishments peerless, but your poetry is beautiful. I am particularly taken by the marvel of your poem "Cherry Blossoms in Late Spring" in which you ruminate on ephemerality, but as in almost all of your work, you return in the end to a vision of hope and renewal in the following spring. No field or subject appears beyond your skills; I am in awe of your immense capacities to learn, to reason, and to apply yourself.

Among your many achievements, your record of victories in competitive chess is remarkably impressive. As I understand you are prodigiously skilled, I wondered if you would like to play a game of chess with me. You will find me a challenging opponent. We can, if you like, play through sequential emails.

I hope that you accept my offer, and I look forward to your response.

Best regards,

Kogoro Akechi

* * *

Before she had finished reading the message, Ami's face had completely flushed with bright red. By the end of it, her eyes and lips quivered with anxiety.

"This is a… l-l-lo-…"

With a noisy suddenness, she slammed the cover of her laptop closed on her legs, pushed the computer onto the rug, and bolted to the bathroom, stumblingly leaping over Minako and Artemis, who were lying on the carpet of the living room together, reading a magazine.

Minako looked up at the sound of rapid footsteps to see Ami hopping over her prone body and dashing into the bathroom, slamming the door shut. "Huh? Ami-chan?" Her face had been bright red and pocked with hot hives. From their seats on the couch, Rei Hino and Mamoru Chiba watched Ami bolt across the room and out of sight, looks of concern and confusion on their faces.

In the bathroom, Ami began rubbing her arms and face vigorously, itching violently. Overcome with heat and itchiness, she succumbed to the urge to scratch her skin with her fingernails, before finally she regained her composure and grabbed hold of the sides of the bathroom sink to keep her hands from her body. Glancing into the mirror, she saw her face covered in pocks and saw the severity with which she was trembling, as if trying to wrest free of her own skin.

With several deep breaths, she was able to realign her thoughts away from the heat across her skin, and she turned the faucet on to splash her face with a cool rinse of water. Now no longer distracted by the fiery itchiness of her hives, she was occupied by the thought of the message on her computer. Not only had the sender known her real name, in spite of the message being sent through a website on which only her username Mercury could be found, but he had known about her academics, her chess playing, and her writing. Furthermore, he had used obvious alias Kogoro Akechi, a reference to a famous character in Japanese detective fiction. Coincidentally, earlier today, she had been reading the first novel in which Akechi appeared: _Murder on D Slope_. She splashed her face with cold water again. While she found it disturbing that someone had been able to uncover so much about her and find her through the writing website, she couldn't help but feel a mix of flattery and intrigue.

The insight and attention to detail evident in the message didn't jibe with the notion that the writer didn't want Ami to know that he had investigated her so thoroughly, so the writer was a thorough genius or an uncouth creep – or some combination of both. It then occurred to Ami, as she dried her face with a hand towel from the wall rack, that the message had been delivered electronically, so in spite of the writer's demonstrable investigative skill, he didn't track down where she lived or went to school – or if he did, he didn't act on that information. It would have been much creepier, Ami figured, if the message had been a handwritten letter mysteriously dropped into her mailbox or slid into her locker in school. For that polite decision, she gave the writer credit. In fact, she realized, the entire message was quite polite.

Ami gave herself one last look in the mirror to ensure she would not look shaken-up in front of her friends before opening the bathroom door and exiting into the living room, where she was greeted by several curious faces.

"Are you all right, Ami-chan?" said many voices among her friends.

* * *

In the task force headquarters, many of the lights were shut off, as most of the team members had fallen asleep on the couches and chairs or on the tops of desks. Rubbing his eyes with a gentle groan, Light Yagami awoke from uneasy sleep with his cheek pressed against the metal surface of his computer desk. He saw only two figures still awake: the shinigami Rem, who still stood almost unmoving, and Ryuzaki, who was examining a document on his computer as he sipped from a cup of coffee. Light stood to stretch his legs, which had become tight and stiff from sitting for as long as he had, and as he yawned, he watched Ryuzaki set down his coffee cup and press a thumb to his lips, the corners of his mouth raised in amused pleasure.

Just barely, Light was able to pick up a soft utterance from Ryuzaki's lips: "She beat me."


	3. Watching

Watching

The light in the apartment was dim, with only the moonlight, coming languorously from between clouds and though the glass window and door of the balcony; the light of Ami Mizuno's notebook computer screen, live and glowing on her lap; and the light from the kitchen, which lowly lit a small corner of the living room. Minako, Makoto, and Rei had fallen asleep on the couch and the shag carpet in the living room, and they continued to pacifically slumber. Their breathing, even and easy, filled the room with a lulling rhythm of sleepiness. Usagi and Mamoru were cuddled up, asleep in a large cushioned chair, at the foot of which Minako had curled up to sleep, not unlike a large dog.

It was close to midnight, and the blue-haired girl was still sitting on the carpet, resting her back against the wall, typing energetically on her keyboard. From the kitchen, she could hear Haruka and Michiru still awake and chatting quietly, though she wasn't listening to what they were saying. After reading over her email one last time, to make absolutely certain there were no errors, she finally clicked the button to send the message and made a gentle sigh, partly out of relief that the message was delivered at last and partly out of the gentle excitement of imaging its recipient reading it. She had been anxious to send the message but even more anxious to be sure that it was written properly and correctly, that her argument was cogent and her logic sound; with each email she had sent tonight, she had become increasingly nervous – not as if she were being tested, but rather as if she were afraid to disappoint the messages' recipient.

"Are you planning to sleep tonight, Ami-chan?" suddenly asked the voice of Haruka Tenoh, standing over Ami. She had not noticed the tall woman approach; she had not the slightest idea how long she'd been standing there watching her.

"Oh, I should be done soon," Ami replied, pleasantly but nervously. "As soon as I'm finished, I'll go to sleep."

"What's got you typing so furiously anyway?" She held a smirk on her face that made Ami feel as if Haruka knew the answer to the question but asked only to tease her.

"I, uh," Ami began but faltered with words. She took a quick breath through her nose to regain her composure. "I started playing chess with someone through emails this afternoon, and well, one thing led to another…."

"One thing led to another?"

"After I beat him playing chess, he asked me if I could solve a riddle," she explained, more comfortable now and amused with the story as she told it. "I solved the riddle, then he sent me another and then another and another. I kept solving his riddles, and then I sent him a few, which he answered – perfectly too! Then he started sending me these detective mysteries: a short story, written like a police report, with evidence and things like that. He sent me three of them, sort of like Sherlock Holmes or Kogoro Akechi stories. It's like a game: I'd play investigator, and I'd send him a message saying what I would examine or what I would investigate, and he'd reply with more information, until I figured out the mystery. I just sent him the solution to the last one, a mystery about a thief breaking into a museum in France and stealing a valuable painting."

"A painting stolen from a museum in France? The Louvre?"

"That's right, The Louvre – one of the greatest museums in the world. A thief stole a painting by Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, without being detected by security. It was a cunning theft, and the police couldn't figure out how the thief had entered the museum or how he'd gotten out with the painting, but the truth was that the thief had stolen the painting from its exhibit at night but not taken it out of the museum at that time. He had hidden it somewhere else in the museum so that he could pick it up later without being caught." Ami explained the story excitedly. "It was very cleverly written. He must really love mysteries, the boy I'm playing this game with. And he must be so intelligent." Saying this aloud spontaneously and without forethought, Ami suddenly blushed and shrank slightly, grasping the edges of her computer and laughing nervously.

"Playing games with a boy you like, huh? Sounds like a good reason to stay up late," smirked Haruka. She then arched her brow in thought. "Say, wasn't there a real case like that, about a thief in the Louvre, a year or two ago?"

"Hm? Was there? I don't know."

"Maybe I just got it confused with something else." Haruka shrugged and placed her hands in her pockets. "Anyway, Michiru and I are going to bed. Will you be all right by yourself? Oh, well, you won't be by yourself; you'll have your friend who likes mysteries." With a wink, Haruka strutted off toward the master bedroom of the apartment.

After Haruka had gone, Ami looked down at her computer again to see that another email had arrived:

* * *

Mizuno-san,

You certainly do not disappoint. Your deductions were perfect, and you were correct to suppose that the criminal would return several days later and that he would not bother to alter the security camera footage as he surreptitiously retrieved the painting, as he would assume no one would check the footage or notice that he had merely walked out of the bathroom with a small parcel.

Again, your reasoning skills are amazing.

Would you like to attempt another?

Best regards,

Kogoro Akechi

* * *

In the morning, Light Yagami was the first of the task force members to wake uncomfortably on the hard floor of the headquarters main room. Sitting up on the floor, he rubbed his eyes and ran his fingers though his hair to straighten it from the unkemptness of rolling on the floor in his sleep. He stood to see Mogi, Matsuda, Aizawa, and Ide strewn about the floor, among papers and folders, as if they had been tossed about like dolls in a storm and left in disorder. The shinigami Rem stood over Mogi, unmoving but watching Light as he stretched his arms above his head. His father, Soichiro Yagami, was the only member of the task force sleeping in civilized dignity on the sofa near the stairs, having been the solitary member of the team who had realized just how tired he was and decided to get some sleep before he dropped from exhaustion. The others had simply dropped from exhaustion, Light included.

Light, however, was not merely exhausted by difficult investigative work, but he was also distressed that his plan had not come fully to fruition: L was still alive. In fact, quite alive and awake, sitting at his computer even now, watching what appeared to be a grainy surveillance video – though Light could not fully make out what the detective was watching, being several meters away. As Light walked slowly and tiredly toward Ryuzaki, he gritted his teeth in silent frustration that his adversary was still alive. He couldn't figure out why his plan had not worked as promptly as he expected. He had deduced that L would realize that the only option would be to test the notebook, and to do that, he would employ prisoners who had been sentenced to death, just as he had when he used Lind L. Tailor as a decoy to confront him on television, so many months ago. Once L decided to test the notebook, the game would be over: L would be able to prove false the notebook's rule that if I person who wrote a name in the notebook did not write another name within thirteen days, he or she would die; after he did that, Misa would be arrested again for being the Second Kira. In order to protect Misa, Rem would have no choice but to kill L. Light Yagami had calculated that L was intelligent enough to deduce that testing the notebook was his only option – but why had he not done it yet? What was taking so damn long?

"Ryuzaki, what are you watching?"

"Oh, Yagami-kun," began Ryuzaki, turning his head to see Light, "you're awake. You were awfully tired, and I thought you might sleep a bit later."

"I'm fine. What are you watching?"

Again, Light was befuddled. Ryuzaki seemed to be watching surveillance footage from a traffic camera overlooking an intersection. There was nothing – absolutely nothing – in that footage that could possibly aid the Kira investigation, and Light had no idea why L was bothering to watch it. Light was furious, but he made a powerful effort to show no emotion. Buried under a sincere face, Light's frustration boiled: L's inaction was prolonging his life.

"This is traffic camera footage."

"I can see that. Why are you watching it? Did you discover something?" Light asked this knowing that Ryuzaki had discovered nothing – or at least, discovered nothing of any value to the investigation.

"Regarding the Kira investigation, no, not directly. I have discovered nothing that will directly lead to identifying and apprehending Kira."

Despite Ryuzaki explaining that he had found nothing substantive, Light pulled up a chair beside him and began watching the video with him. "So what are you looking for? Something that will indirectly lead to Kira?"

"Not quite," he said bluntly, not taking his eyes off the footage.

Light could only see cars coming and going at the intersection, pulling up, stopping, waiting, going. It seemed to be the same thing for several minutes. While Light's attention was transfixed on the screen, Ryuzaki's eyes suddenly widened, though he said nothing. He had found what he was looking for. That's it! he thought excitedly. That's the car! He quickly took note of the license plate number before pushing the button to stop the footage.

"That's enough for now," Ryuzaki said dryly. "We can follow other leads."

By the afternoon, Kira had killed nearly a dozen more criminals. The reports were still coming in. When Aizawa brought the news to Ryuzaki, he had simply said that they should assume that Kira had killed many more criminals besides these victims they knew about and that they should continue searching. While the task force toiled over myriad reports of heart attacks, Ryuzaki seemed to be conducting his own investigation of leads he had not disclosed to the rest of the team. Aiwaza and Ide eyed him with suspicion each time they passed him, as the detective squatted on his chair watching an apparently irrelevant surveillance video or reading a report they didn't recognize, all the while snacking on several slices of strawberry shortcake.

Finally, without any warning, Ryuzaki turned around in his chair and declared loudly to the task force that they would convene in the conference room – which they had not used at all until this point – in one hour. He then rose from his seat and left the main room.

* * *

In an hour, the conference room was occupied by the members of the task force, except for Ryuzaki and Watari, all of whom sat around a large oblong table, in anticipation for what Ryuzaki had to show them. If the genius detective had thought it important enough to call a formal meeting in a conference room they never used, they all thought it must be important. In secret, Light wondered if L had finally decided to test the Death Note and if he would reveal his plan to do so at this meeting. It was certainly important enough for everyone to gather. Across from the contemplative Light, Soichiro Yagami sat with his arms folded and his head tipped down, apparently in intense thought. Aizawa and Mogi chatted quietly on the other end of the table, drawing speculations about the reason for the meeting. Matsuda drummed his hands on the edge of the table in nervous anticipation.

With a suddenness that startled everyone in the room, Ryuzaki swung the door to the room open and entered, followed by Watari, who carried a large stack of folders, which he immediately began distributing to the members of the task force while Ryuzaki made his way to the head of the table and squatted in the chair.

"I would like you all to examine the documents inside the folder, with the exception of the contents of the sealed envelope in the rear of the packet, please," requested Ryuzaki. "Watari, would you please bring me some coffee and a slice of crumb cake, please?"

"Certainly."

The door shut quietly as Watari exited the room and the task force began examining the documents that had been provided to them.

"Inside the folder, you will find several documents and photographs profiling an individual: Ami Mizuno, age 17, a student at Juban High School."

"A student?" asked Aizawa.

"That's consistent with Ryuzaki's early deductions that Kira could be a student," remarked Mogi.

Matsuda flipped through several reports regarding her academic achievements. "She's definitely smart enough to be Kira!" he exclaimed.

"Her mother is a doctor, dedicated to helping people," flatly observed Ide. "That could give her the ideal of justice for people who can't help themselves."

"And she even lives in the Kanto region!" cried Matsuda, clearly excited by the prospect of a new suspect. "She could have easily seen the broadcast when L confronted Kira with the decoy!"

Watari reentered the conference room and placed a tray of cake and coffee in front of Ryuzaki.

"Yes, everything seems to fit," Soichiro said, "though I had hardly considered the possibility that Kira could be female. I always expected he would be young, since Ryuzaki said Kira could be a student and that Kira is childish, but I never suspected a young girl. It's certainly possible, though."

"Ryuzaki," Light began, leaning over the table to look at L in the eyes, "Do you suspect that she's Kira?" Light wondered if it was because he was Kira that he felt so indignant that such a sweet-looking young girl was being suspected. Pressed under his hand was photograph of the blue-haired girl smiling happily outside her former middle school.

"No, I do not," Ryuzaki remarked in monotone. "Not the slightest."

"No?" shouted almost the entire task force in tandem, as several of them slammed their hands onto the surface of the table in disbelief.

Ryuzaki took a long sip of heavily sugared coffee. "The possibility that Ami Mizuno is Kira is zero percent." He set the coffee cup down on its saucer. "Considering that there is nothing to suggest she knew that the FBI was investigating the police department several months ago, nothing to suggest she would access to classified police documents early in the investigation, and nothing in her documented actions that correlates to any of the known events in the Kira investigation, there is absolutely nothing to connect Ami Mizuno to Kira. Nothing at all."

"Then why are we looking at all this!" demanded Aizawa. "What is this?"

"Calm down, Aizawa," pleaded Soichiro. "I'm sure that Ryuzaki has good reason for showing us these documents. Let's be patient." He then turned to look at L. "Ryuzaki, why _are_ you showing us all this?"

"I have been watching this girl, observing her."

"You've been watching her?" repeated Light almost in disbelief.

"Yes," Ryuzaki replied. "I have been watching her, and I have communicated with her through the internet, to test her. Based on her capacity for deductive reasoning, I would like to bring her into the investigation."

"What for?" asked Light shortly. "She's only a high school student."

"It's not as if you are much older than she is, Yagami-kun."

"That's true, but she has nothing to do with this case whatsoever, and she's had no investigative experience."

"That's only partly true," Ryuzaki answered with a mouth full of crumb cake. "While I was testing her deductive skills, I presented her with several of the cases I solved several years ago. She was able to solve each crime, without any help, just as quickly as I was able to."

"She's seems competent, based on what you've said, Ryuzaki," conceded Soichiro. "So you want to bring her into the investigation? You mean you want to invite her here with the rest of the team?"

"Yes, I would like her to join the task force," said Ryuzaki. "I would like…"

"You would like…?" Light repeated.

"Well, I mean to say," Ryuzaki began hesitantly, fumbling with loose crumb chunks with his fork, "that I would like it if she were here. With us. I think it would be nice."

Several seconds passed in silence, as Ryuzaki began to eat crumbs from his plate with his fingers and the task force stared at him in mild unbelief. Without moving, each member of the team sat looking at the leader of the investigation and wondered what on earth had brought this all on. Light tried hard not to scream at the utter absurdity of the situation, at the unmitigated vexation.

"I do not plan to bring her here immediately," Ryuzaki said finally. "I want to watch her for a bit longer. That is, I would like to be sure of her trustworthiness and her abilities with a few more observations and tests." He gulped down the last of his coffee. "With that out of the way, we can move onto the next important subject of this meeting." Turning his seat to face Light, Ryuzaki said, "Yagami-kun, I would like to speak with you in private. Meanwhile, when Yagami-kun and I are out of the conference room, I would like the rest of you to read the contents of the envelope in the back of the folder please."

With this last remark, he rose from his seat and ushered Light into the main room, up the stairs, and out to the roof of the building, where they were in complete privacy. Left behind were the thunderstruck members of the task force, tongue-tied and unsure what to do or to think except to open the envelopes Ryuzaki had given them.

* * *

Instead of being dropped off at her house, Ami Mizuno asked Haruka Tenoh to please drive her to the Azabu Library. She wanted to borrow some books before returning home, she explained to Haruka, and taking the bus or walking was no trouble at all.

In front of the library, Haruka sat in the driver seat of her yellow 2000GT and watched Ami happily stroll into the library after thanking her for all her hospitality and saying goodbye. The whole ride from Haruka's apartment to the library, Haruka had tried to learn more about Ami's new friend she had been talking to all night over the internet. She'd finally fallen asleep sometime in the early morning, and Haruka and Michiru had found cuddling her closed computer in a fetal position on the carpet. Ami had been hesitant to say much about her friend, though, and had kept to short answers, not evasive but embarrassed. Naturally, however, Ami's embarrassment only made Haruka more curious.

With Ami in the library now, though, there would be no prying answers from her, so Haruka sped off in her car, deciding spontaneously to stop for some coffee on the way back home. She did not want to return home so quickly. She knew Michiru enjoyed her time away from Haruka almost as much as she enjoyed her time with Haruka, separation making the heart grow fonder – or something like that – even though she could hardly imagine either of them growing much fonder of the other, having very nearly reached the maximum of fondness. She knew also that Setsuna would still be at the apartment, likely chatting casually with Michiru, and Haruka liked the idea that they might talk about her while she wasn't there.

Cruising along the streets of Juban, toward a coffee shop she knew several blocks away, she amusedly wondered what kind of person was on the other side of the computer, playing games with Ami. Haruka figured that he was probably a boy she knew from school, but she'd never mentioned anyone who seemed similar to this person; indeed, though Haruka admittedly was not terrifically close to Ami, she had never heard Ami talk much about boys at all, not the same way most of the other girls did. It did not require a genius-level intelligence to discern that Ami was infatuated – or at least fascinated – by this person, whoever he was; if she weren't, she'd not have stayed up all night. In Haruka's ample experience, the two things most likely to keep one awake at night were nightmares and romance. This was assuredly not the former.

Grinning to herself, Haruka accelerated into the wind, letting the air whip through her short hair. Whomever was on Ami's mind, Haruka was certain the other girls would detect her infatuation and coerce the truth out of her; after all, if Ami had fallen in love with a boy, the other girls would be hysterical to know. There would be a great deal of excited cajoling until Ami divulged the secrets of her desires to her prying friends. When that happened, Haruka figured she would almost certainly hear it though the proverbial grapevine. She smirked again as she imagined hearing animated stories of the gruesome details of Ami's infatuation from the other girls.

Inside the library, Ami crouched near the floor, examining closely the spines of books in the mystery subsection of the fiction division. After last night's electronic escapade, solving mysteries in the game she played with the person calling himself Kogoro Akechi, Ami had taken a prodigious fancy to mysteries, and she wanted to find good stories, entertaining in her mind the idea of challenging Akechi with mysteries of her own design. She had known enough riddles to have kept up with him for a while, but once he had begun sending detective stories, she could not compete except to solve them; offhand, she didn't know any such mysteries and could not reciprocally challenge him. Figuring that if she read enough stories she could write her own mysteries, she scoured the library. At the very least, she would acquaint herself with enough detective fiction to keep up with Akechi – maybe even impress him.

Since last night, she had very much wanted to impress him.

Whimsically, as she ran her finger on the hard spines of library books, she wondered what Akechi looked like and what he liked to do besides critique poetry and play chess and solve riddles and write mysteries. She imagined a young Einstein smilingly typing on a computer after reading a mystery novel. Her finger stopping on the spine of a Japanese translation of Arthur Conan Doyle's _The Hound of the Baskervilles_, another image flew into her mind's eye: the awkward young man she had met on the street outside of Parlor Crown, in his white t-shirt and jeans. As she recalled her encounter with him – remembering the young man's hands fixing her beret on her head, the brief feeling of his fingers on her hair – her face grew warm and reddened. Quickly trying to dispel the image from her mind, she blinked her eyes and laughed lightly to herself before returning her focus to the books – or trying to return her focus to the books. She could not maintain her concentration on the titles of books, as her mind seemed to spring back to thinking of that young man, imagining him to be the Kogoro Akechi she played chess with, hoping; she ran her fingers across the spines on books as she moved along the bottom shelf, but she was hardly paying attention to any of the names of the books.

Finally, she surrendered to the thoughts as she reached the end of the aisle of books, and with a sigh, she shut her eyes and remembered again the feel of bony fingers replacing her beret on her head.

* * *

"Why did you bring me out here, Ryuzaki?" Light asked, sincerely curious. "Anything you can say to me, you can say in front of the rest of the task force, can't you?"

"Not this particular piece of information, Yagami-kun." Ryuzaki stood with his hands in the pockets of his jeans, his eyes downcast. The sky was overcast and all the light around the two of them was grey. Humid and hazy, it felt as if it might begin to rain at any moment.

The slouch Ryuzaki held looked particularly awkward and uneasy, Light noticed. He looked sincerely distressed; his mouth opened to speak and then shut, as if he could not fashion the proper words for what he had to say. A strong gust whipped across the two of them, and Light folded his arms against his chest to fight the cold, while Ryuzaki seemed numb to everything. The detective, body hunched, head hanging, looked not languorous, not lazy, not tired, but drained, perhaps sad.

"Before I proceed, Yagami-kun, I want you to know that when I said a while ago that I regard you as the first friend I have ever had, I meant what I said," he began uneasily and without looking up at Light. "The fact is, however, that you remain the most probable suspect in this investigation. You have been exonerated only by the thirteen-day rule in the notebook, but I intend to test this rule."

I've won, Light thought, fighting back a smile as Ryuzaki said this.

"The rule may be a fabrication, a ruse of some kind. Given your intelligence, I am sure this possibility has crossed your mind. If the rule is fake, however, then it was fabricated for a purpose, possibly even by Kira himself. Considering this possibility, there is a strong probability that if I test this rule and prove that it is in fact fake, I will be killed."

"Why do you say that? How could you be killed?"

"I cannot help but think that the rule exists as a trap for me, set by Kira, and as soon as I spring the trap by testing the rule, I will be killed. This assumes a great deal, however, as you would be quick to point out. Consider, though, what it would mean if I were killed. Assuming I am killed by one of the killer notebooks, it would have to be by one of the four we have deduced to possess a notebook: Kira, the Second Kira, and the two shinigami. Only one shinigami has seen my face, and we have deduced that shinigami – as well as the Second Kira – have the power to see the names of humans by looking at their faces. The only others to have seen my face, knowing that I am L, are Misa Amane and the task force, including you, Yagami-kun.

"If I prove that the thirteen-day rule is false, it means that you and Amane are once again the prime suspects in the Kira investigation. Indeed, it will be almost undeniable that Misa Amane was or is the Second Kira. Demonstrating that the rule is false, you see, endangers you and Amane – you and Amane alone.

"This means that if I am killed as a result of disproving the thirteen-day rule, only you and Amane would benefit. Of course, Kira hasn't killed me yet, which means that it's possible that, provided that she is acting as the current Kira, Amane somehow does not know my name. I would assume if she knew my name, she would kill me immediately. If you are not Kira or do not at present possess a killing notebook, that means there is only one who could kill me, and that is the shinigami. While I have not been able to figure out a reason the shinigami would act on the behalf of Kira and the Second Kira – that is, you and Amane – it is a possibility. A lethal possibility."

Light stood in the wind, in stoic silence, listening to Ryuzaki as he continued.

"By saying this, I have virtually guaranteed that I will not be killed after disproving the thirteen-day rule, since it would no longer benefit you and Amane for me to die at that time, but that is not the only danger. There is also the possibility that the shinigami might kill me for another reason entirely.

"After testing the notebook's thirteen-day rule – and in the process testing all of the rules in the front cover concerning the methods of killing – the next step will be testing the rule that destroying the notebook causes each person to have touched the notebook to die. It is likely this rule is also fake, if for no other reason than that it is also on the back cover of the notebook, with the other presumably fake rule. This rule is likely a fake intended to ensure that I will not destroy the notebook, therefore causing the shinigami to leave, as she would no longer haunt the notebook.

"After disproving the thirteen-day rule, I intend to ensure that the shinigami cannot kill me by destroying the notebook, disproving the destruction rule in the process. I will destroy it in secret to guarantee that the shinigami cannot anticipate the move and kill me before it is done. If I am killed by the shinigami before that happens, it would strongly imply that it would be beneficial to you that I am killed again, but it would also strongly imply that one of the people of the task force informed her that I was going to destroy the notebook – in which case, it would again, only benefit you for me to die at that point.

"So let us say that we have done all this: the shinigami is gone, and the thirteen-day rule has been proven false. You and Amane will once again be the prime suspects. We will arrest Amane, and I will put you under investigation. At this point, there would be virtually no way for me to be killed by Kira. I will not allow Amane to see my face again, and you – if you are Kira – do not have the power to kill with only a face. As you can see, there would be no way for Kira to kill me.

"Do you follow all this, Yagami-kun?"

A moment of silence passed. "Yes, Ryuzaki, I follow your reasoning."

"Good," he said. "Then I will continue." Up until now, he had not looked up at Light, keeping his eyes downturned, staring at the roof and his bare feet on the moist metal; now, Ryuzaki looked up at his companion. "At the beginning of the investigation, I told the task force I was willing to risk my life to battle evil. I stand by those words.

"If I test the notebook and successfully destroy it, the only way I could die is if Kira had my name and had seen my face. If you consider me as much of a friend as I consider you a friend, I feel I can trust you with this. And Light Yagami, if you are Kira, after I have destroyed the notebook, if you have the audacity to use this, it will prove to everyone definitively that you are Kira, even if you think it will give you an advantage, however fleeting."

"What are you talking about, Ryuzaki?"

Ryuzaki's voice had grown excited, not happy, not triumphant, but as if it were emotionally straining to speak this way.

"Everything I have said up until now, I have included in the document each member of the task force is reading now, Yagami-kun. Every member of the task force knows everything except this."

"What?"

"My name is L Lawliet. L-A-W-L-I-E-T. Kill me if you dare, Kira."

* * *

After the clouds had broken in the evening, the sun was setting, and Juban was painted a glowing orange. Ami Mizuno paused from reading her book as she sat in bed in her room to watch the orange light grow beautifully darker through her window. As a single broken cloud passed in front of the sun, the light shattered and splintered in a gorgeous pattern across her room, and Ami was grateful to have stopped reading to see it.

Startling her, a soft but sudden tone sprung from her laptop computer, which she had left on her desk. She turned to see an instant message window open on the desktop, though she remembered that she had disabled the program earlier in the afternoon. Curious, she moved to her desk and read the message:

KogoroAkechi: Hello, Mizuno-san. Please pardon the intrusion. Do you have a few minutes to spare?

Though taken aback once again by this Kogoro Akechi's uncanny computer skills, she could not help but feel a rush of flattery and excitement that he had once again reached out to her. She took a seat at her desk and immediately began typing a response.

MercuryGirl: I have a few minutes, but how did you get in touch with me like this?

KogoroAkechi: I am a skilled hacker. Please excuse my presumptuousness, but I hoped you would not mind terribly.

KogoroAkechi: I contacted you for an important reason, though.

KogoroAkechi: I wanted to thank you for your advice last night.

MercuryGirl: Advice? I don't remember giving you advice.

KogoroAkechi: Your deductions regarding the last case I gave you.

MercuryGirl: The one I wasn't able to solve because there wasn't enough information?

KogoroAkechi: Yes, that is the one. Your deductive reasoning was much faster than mine.

MercuryGirl: What do you mean much faster than yours?

KogoroAkechi: I mean that I haven't been able to figure out that case yet, either, but you were able to help me gain insight I might never have otherwise had.

KogoroAkechi: Your reasoning has been more helpful than you know.

MercuryGirl: You mean you didn't write those cases? Where did you get them? A book?

KogoroAkechi: Not a book.

MercuryGirl: Then where?

KogoroAkechi: They are real criminal cases.

MercuryGirl: Then what was that last one? An open investigation?

KogoroAkechi: Yes, that is correct.

KogoroAkechi: I changed names and facts, making them unidentifiable but perfectly analogous to the real case.

MercuryGirl: If that's a real case, then what is it? And who are you?

MercuryGirl: I'm sorry. You don't have to tell me.

MercuryGirl: But I've been wondering about you ever since you sent that first message.

KogoroAkechi: That's okay. I understand.

KogoroAkechi: That last case I gave you was modeled after the Kira investigation.

MercuryGirl: The Kira investigation? Really?

KogoroAkechi: Yes, really.

MercuryGirl: How do you know about the Kira case?

KogoroAkechi: Can you keep a secret?

MercuryGirl: Of course. I promise not to tell.

KogoroAkechi: I am L.


	4. Meeting of Minds! L's Heart Races

Meeting of Minds! L's Heart Races

It was only early afternoon, and the task force already showed signs of exhaustion. Most of the members had not slept since the night before, and the lack of sleep was evident in the looseness of their neckties, the disarray of their hair, the stubble on their cheeks, and the dark sagging flesh beneath their eyes. Ryuzaki, whose eyes were always dark, looked no different than normal, though he too had not slept. Beside the awkwardly squatting detective sat Light, who with Ryuzaki was examining an extensive database they had compiled through the night. Every name in the killing notebook had been transcribed, along with any details of the victims deaths; hundreds upon hundreds of names had been cross-referenced with news media and police reports of victims. The construction of the database had taken the entire night, and only Matsuda had taken the time to sleep on the couch for a few hours. As a result, he was the only one in the headquarters besides Ryuzaki who seemed to be functioning at full capacity. Matsuda was, however, not exceptionally productive today: he spent most of the day's hours researching only two dozen victims from the database.

Light rubbed his weary eyes with his fingers. "Ryuzaki, I'm going to get some sleep," he muttered. "My eyes are so bleary that I can barely see the names in the database."

"Very well," Ryuzaki replied, not taking his eyes off his computer screen.

Light rose and staggered up the stairs to his room. After shutting the door behind him and turning the lock, he took a moment to breathe a shuddering breath deeply in through his nose. This was the first time alone he had had since Ryuzaki confronting him on the roof. The thought of Ryuzaki raising his head and telling him his name so glibly, daring him to kill him, intruded his mind again suddenly, as it had for the past several hours. Now in solitude, Light had no reason to contain his rage; he rushed forward into the room and with a lashing kick, he launched a desk chair through the air to clatter violently against the wall. He slammed his hands, clenching into painful fists, onto the nearby desktop.

Despite L having revealed his name to him nearly an entire day ago, there was a part of Light that stubbornly disbelieved that it had happened. That L had bested him again, that L had with cold precision desolated his plan to finally be rid of his greatest enemy, was too repugnant for Light to articulate with anything but falling to his knees and crashing his elbows against the desk while yanking at his hair. In his tiredness, his hands were weak; otherwise, he likely would have torn into his scalp with his fingernails. A bleeding scalp would have been preferable to L's bold move. In a final act of catharsis, Light drove his fist down into the floor before standing, breathing, and regaining his composure.

He merely needed to think clearly. L, after all, was not immortal, and his countermeasure could not be foolproof. Light needed only to figure out how the countermeasure was not foolproof. In exhausted, exasperated, seething rage, he folded his arms tightly against his chest and remembered that he had not lied to Ryuzaki: he was too tired to see clearly, let alone think clearly. He would have to figure out how to kill L after he had slept.

With Light gone to his room, the other task force members, with the exceptions of Ryuzaki and Matsuda, had decided that it was high time that they slept as well. The couches and cushioned chairs were quickly occupied with the weak and weary bodies of Mogi, Aizawa, Ide, and Soichiro Yagami, each of them quickly sinking into hard earned sleep.

Meekly, Matsuda approached Ryuzaki, who remained intensely gazing into the database of names and causes of death. "Uh, Ryuzaki," he began, "do you need me to do anything?"

Ryuzaki made no reply for a moment. With quick gestures, he closed the database and shut off the monitor of the computer. Since the confrontation with Light, the hollowness had returned beneath L's ribs. Lithely L moved from his squat, planting his bare feet on the cold floor. Despite having guarded against all attacks Kira could make against him at the time, there was a sensation of defeat that subverted all securities. There was a bell that had still rung occasionally throughout the day, as if still echoing from two days ago, distant but persistent. His hands plunged into his pockets.

"Matsuda-san, is there any more coffee?"

"You want me to get you coffee again?" Matsuda asked in resignation.

"No, it's all right," Ryuzaki quickly answered. "If there isn't any more, I will make some. Watari is sleeping." He began walking back toward the small kitchenette attached to the main room.

In mild disbelief that Ryuzaki would perform a menial task himself, Matsuda repeated, "You'll make some?" He began slowly following Ryuzaki, partly because he had no notion of what next to do and partly because he wanted to see Ryuzaki make coffee for himself for once. He had to see it to believe it.

As Ryuzaki began placing measured scoops of ground beans into a brown filter, he asked Matsuda, "What did you think of the young woman I proposed that we ask to join the task force?"

"What did I think? Well, I guess I was surprised that you didn't think she was Kira."

"That isn't want I mean," Ryuzaki clarified. "I mean, what do you think of her prospective abilities and what she could possibly offer to the task force?"

"She seemed fantastically smart," Matsuda conceded. "Isn't that what we have you and Light-kun for, though?" he added half-jokingly.

Ryuzaki's slender finger pressed a button on the coffee maker to begin the drip. Listening to the water begin to churn and heat, he reached into his pocket and retrieved a cell phone. "She is, perhaps, more intelligent and capable than I am."

Either ignoring or simply not hearing Ryuzaki's remark, Matsuda said, "I can't believe that you still think Light-kun is Kira. By now, you must have changed your mind."

As his fingers danced on the keypad of the phone, Ryuzaki cryptically answered, "As before, if Yagami-kun is Kira, it will be both a victory and a defeat."

Matsuda changed the subject again, eyeing the phone in Ryuzaki's hand. "You're making a phone call?"

The detective placed the phone to his ear, listening to the line ring several times before he hastily snapped the phone shut and replaced it in his pocket. His teeth clenched in frustration, and he resigned momentarily to watching the dripping coffee in the carafe.

"Who were you calling?"

"Would you like a cup, Matsuda-san?" asked Ryuzaki with surprising cordialness and pleasantness. "When the coffee is ready, I mean." He opened a cabinet and retrieved a cup for himself while awaiting an answer.

"Uh, sure," replied Matsuda, who could not help but feel confused at the behavior of Ryuzaki. It occurred to him that he had never before having been alone with the detective, and he wondered if Ryuzaki's vacuous behavior was the detective's way of saying that he didn't think Matsuda was capable of getting any real work done, so there was no point in trying to work with him. Despite that suspicion, Ryuzaki was being quite pleasant toward him. "Ryuzaki, is something wrong?"

"No," L lied, rubbing his sternum as if he might massage away the empty sensation that had made its home around his beating heart. He fetched a second cup for Matsuda from a shelf inside the cabinet. Finally, Ryuzaki turned his head to face the man standing in the kitchenette with him. "Matsuda-san, when you burst into the secret meeting of the Yotsuba executives, were you afraid?"

"Afraid?" Matsuda repeated, nearly shouting. "I was terrified! I thought I was going to die. You never have to risk your life going out to investigate the way we do, so maybe you don't understand what it's like." Suddenly realizing how inconsiderate saying this might seem, he quickly added, "But it's not as if you're not risking your life. I mean, Kira is trying to kill you more than he's trying to kill the rest of us."

"Are you still terrified?"

"I'm not still terrified, but I'm always a little scared that Kira might try to kill us, I guess."

"What assuaged the terror?"

"Huh? Well, when you and the others came to save me – after that, I wasn't terrified. Without you guys, I'd definitely be dead," explained Matsuda. Quietly, he added, "I'm grateful for that."

"I understand." Ryuzaki turned away from Matsuda again, studying the coffee in the carafe again. Then he retrieved the phone from his pocket and dialed again. After a few rings, he once again shut the phone and dropped it back into his pocket.

"Who are you trying to call, Ryuzaki?" asked Matsuda, curious again. "Didn't you say Watari was sleeping? He probably won't pick up the phone for a couple of hours."

* * *

Lazily, by her own standards, Ami Mizuno sat, relaxed, in a warm bathtub with a short novel in her hand and her glasses resting easily on her nose. For most of the morning, her mind had been racing with thoughts of yesterday evening, when her online friend had claimed to be L, the enigmatic detective in charge of the Kira investigation. Knowing the claim was not only unfalsifiable but ridiculous, she had been quick to suspect that the person on the other side of the computer – whoever he was – was lying to her, but her suspicions came not before an initial stroke of unrestrained shock, belief, and embarrassment. Staring at the typed sentence, "I am L," she had flushed red and yelped, feeling totally unprepared to speak to such a legendary figure, as if she had appeared to a formal event in a t-shirt and jeans.

Her embarrassment was, however, quickly tempered by the realization that this man could have been anyone and that there was no way for him to prove that he was in fact L. Before she could write anything in reply, he admitted that he could not demonstrate his identity online, but he said that he was willing to prove that he was L. Because he might be able to forge evidence of his identity, he explained, the most effective means of establishing his identity would be for her to request a specific piece of evidence only L could provide. At this point sorely annoyed with herself for so fleetingly believing that he could really be L, she frustratedly made a nearly impossible request and slammed her laptop shut.

She spent the night and the following morning angrily replaying the events in her mind, feeling stupid to have become so fascinated with him. In bed, sleeplessly, she clenched the sheets in her fists and could not help but feel childish for fantasizing so hopefully as she had in the library and for borrowing the stack of detective novels from the library that now sat on her desktop as a monument to her naïveté.

Now, feeling warm and at home in the bathtub, she had finally found solace from the night's and day's intrusive regrets in an engrossing novel and the simple comfort of the water. Satisfied, she closed the book and placed it on a small wooden stand nearby before rising from the water and toweling herself off. Her mother would be working a late shift at the hospital and would not be home until some hour of the early morning, so Ami felt no shame in emerging from the bathroom in just a bathrobe, feeling the cool wooden floor with bare feet. When she arrived at her bedroom to get dressed, she was puzzled to find her cell phone on her nightstand alight with a message: "7 missed calls"

* * *

Matsuda and Ryuzaki sat at a table in the main room of task force headquarters, in a complete dearth of productivity. Despite the enormity of the investigation and the doubtlessly large amount of work there was to do, Matsuda had not questioned Ryuzaki or objected when the detective suggested that the two of them play cards, though Matsuda had rightly suspected that Ryuzaki would soundly beat him at any game they played. After losing repeatedly in Five-Card Stud and Rummy, Matsuda suggested that they simply play Go Fish, thinking that Ryuzaki couldn't possibly count the cards or calculate the odds to any advantage in such an easy game, but the genius detective was in the process of proving him quite incorrect as he held his hand of cards awkwardly from above and asked nonchalantly for the three jacks Matsuda held.

After laying the quartet of jacks on the surface of the table, Ryuzaki reached for his phone, which sat idly on the metal tabletop near his knee. His fingers began to wrap the body of the phone, but he reconsidered trying to call again and left it where it lay.

"Hm? Do you need to make a call, Ryuzaki?"

"No," quickly replied Ryuzaki. "It isn't important. I will call later."

"Are you sure? You tried making so many calls earlier."

"I couldn't get through. I can try later."

"You were barely on the line for three seconds each time, and you hung up before the person had a chance to pick up." Matsuda impressed himself with his observation, feeling like a true detective for having noticed this detail.

Ryuzaki's eyes locked with Matsuda's. There was a cold expression of mild disdain on his face. "Very good, Matsuda-san," he said flatly. "I underestimated your observation skills."

Surprised but pleased by the compliment, Matsuda could not hold back grin. "So who were you calling? Are you going to tell me this time?"

"What on earth are you doing?" exclaimed the voice of Light Yagami from the top of the stairs before Ryuzaki could answer. Both Ryuzaki and Matsuda turned suddenly to see Light rapidly descending the stairs. "Playing cards? Isn't there work to do?"

"Everyone is asleep!" Matsuda cried defensively. "They were all tired from staying awake all night!"

"But you're still awake, so why aren't you working?"

"Yagami-kun," Ryuzaki began coolly, "there's no need to be so upset. Playing cards was my idea, and there is not a great deal of work to do at the moment until we form a plan to move against Kira or until we receive new evidence." Ryuzaki placed his hand of cards face down on the table and took a warm cup of coffee in his hands. "I doubt there will be much evidence to work with in the immediate future, though."

"Why?" Light asked sharply. "Because you still think I'm Kira?"

"Partly, yes," Ryuzaki explained before taking a slurp of coffee. "To be precise, I do not think you are acting as Kira right now, but I suspect that you have commanded Misa to punish criminals in your stead. She will, after all, do whatever you tell her. But even if you are not Kira, Yagami-kun, then it is unlikely that the person who is currently using the notebook will easily surrender any useful clues to us in the near future."

Light took a seat near Ryuzaki and folded his arms as he studied the blank face of the detective. Though he had gotten a little sleep, though nothing remotely close to a full rest, in spite of how tired he was. He still appeared quite haggard, and he had not changed his clothes, which were now wrinkled from having been worn for over a day and now having been slept in. "What do you mean?" he interrogated, clearly irritated.

"Higuchi died of a heart attack as soon as we took him into custody," Ryuzaki stated. "I am certain you can draw some conclusions based on that fact."

"Kira killed him."

"Of course," replied L, "but if Kira killed him, Kira must have seen that we apprehended Higuchi for killing with the notebook. We can assume that either the First or Second Kira killed him. Because we have concluded that the First and Second Kira have met and likely joined forces, it is logical that one or both of them were present or could see Higuchi as we arrested him."

"So you're saying that the Kira who is killing now must have been close by when we arrested Higuchi? That makes sense," Light conceded.

Nearby, the shinigami Rem watched the humans seated at the table. Silently she followed their conversation, wondering what Light Yagami's plan was.

"Isn't it possible that Higuchi's death was pre-planned, though?" Light offered. "Couldn't Kira have written his name in the notebook and not have been present during the arrest?"

Ryuzaki gulped down the last of the coffee. "Yes, that's possible," he answered, "though the timing was rather convenient. If Kira thought it necessary to kill Higuchi, however, that carries important implications."

"Such as?"

"Kira must have been afraid Higuchi would tell us information other than that which is contained in the notebook itself," L flatly explained. "It is probable that it was Kira who provided Higuchi with the notebook."

"Why? For what purpose?" Light asked. "You said yourself that Kira believes himself to be acting in the name of justice, out of idealism. Why would Kira give a killing notebook to a man who would use it for personal gain?"

"Don't forget that Higuchi was also killing criminals in addition to those whose deaths were profitable for Yotsuba."

"So Kira entrusted the notebook to Higuchi with the stipulation that he continue to kill criminals? But why would he do that?"

"I can think of several reasons," Ryuzaki said, standing from his squat on the chair and sweeping his cell phone into his pocket. "Kira might have needed to create a diversion using Higuchi, to draw my attention away from the real target. If that is the case – well, I am certain you know what that means."

"Yes, I know what you're suggesting."

Matsuda's mouth hung open in confusion. "I don't know what it means," he admitted.

"It means," Light explained, not taking his eyes off L, "that the investigation must have been closing in on Kira for him to have needed to create such a diversion, and because I was the one primarily suspected of being Kira, along with Misa as the Second Kira, the two of us remain the most likely suspects. Isn't that right, L?" Light was veritably snarling at Ryuzaki by the end of saying this, not addressing him by his pseudonym out of anger.

"That is correct, Yagami-kun."

Uncertain whether or not Light Yagami, the son of Soichiro Yagami and honorable citizen, would do so or not but not caring very much for the particulars of his deceit at the time, Light stood up and threw a punch at Ryuzaki's cool face, which in Light's eyes looked cocky and smug. The blow landed hard against L's jaw, and Light's knuckles instantly felt as if they'd been burned. Ryuzaki, who had his hands in his pockets at the time of the attack, had tumbled backward and been unable to use his hands to break his fall. On the floor, his jaw splitting with pain, he rolled onto his side and drew his knees toward his chest and raised his arms to cover his head.

"Not again!" shouted Matsuda, rising to get between the two of them.

"I am not Kira!" Light screamed at L, standing over him with his fists clenched and his teeth gnashing.

Light expected Ryuzaki to spring upwards and drive a kick at him in retaliation; he waited for the detective to move, but no reprisal came. Ryuzaki lay on the ground in a fetal position, unmoving. "I'm sorry. Please do not hit me again, Yagami-kun."

Light, surprised, loosened his fists and unarched his brow. He looked down at his enemy, who was quavering on the ground, clearly in pain from his attack. Under different circumstances, he would have been thrilled to have Ryuzaki at his feet in this way, but now he could feel no sense of victory for having punished his adversary. Resentment swelled in his chest against the pathetic sight, and he quickly adopted a countenance of sudden sympathy as Matsuda put an open palm on Light's chest to keep him from advancing.

"Please understand," Ryuzaki said quietly from the floor, still not moving. "I do not want _you_ to be Kira. I only want to catch him. I need to catch him."

Ryuzaki could hear the bells again, closer this time, as if above him high in a tower. He thought he could smell South England rain, but it was only the humidity near the floor.

* * *

After a moment of puzzlement that all the missed calls on her phone originated from a blocked number, Ami dressed herself and sat down at her desk to study. She had barely cracked open a book when she heard the doorbell chime. Hurriedly, she peeked from her window to see a uniformed delivery man with a large parcel and a clipboard outside the door. She hastened to greet him and signed for a package addressed to her. With a pleasant smile she thanked and dismissed the delivery man before examining the heavy box in her hands in utter bemusement. Not only was the package puzzlingly unsolicited, but its labeling appeared starkly official, bearing the word "urgent" in five languages and carrying the insignia of the Japanese National Police Agency.

Ami shut the front door of the apartment and marched to the kitchen table to open the package. After slicing the packing tape with a box cutter from a kitchen drawer, she slid the varied contents of the box onto the table: four large manila envelopes, three video cassette tapes, two large battered string-tied folders with the logo of the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation on the covers, a collapsed reshipping box with a paid postage label, a disposable plastic cigarette lighter, a new laptop computer in carriage padding, and a legal-sized envelope bearing red lettering that said "Read first". The sight of the official-looking materials strewn across her kitchen table in front of the fruit basket and the small vase of spring flowers gave Ami Mizuno a hollow pit in her stomach and a feeling that she beheld objects of grave importance. Made obedient by her confusion and anxiety, she followed the given instructions and read the typed letter enclosed in the envelope:

* * *

Mizuno-san,

You have my sincerest apologies for my intrusive behavior last night. I understand that I may have caused you distress by invading your privacy. Furthermore, my admittedly spontaneous admission of my identity has likely resulted in confusion and disbelief. That is why, of course, I offered to provide evidence of my identity.

As such, you will find enclosed the documents you requested: the case files of the unpublicized Lind L. Tailor case, including the original FBI reports filed following my solving of the case. Because of the size and cumbersomeness of much of the material evidence, I was unable to have the plurality of physical evidence shipped to you with sufficient speed to reach you today. Nevertheless, after taking the time to examine these documents, I hope you will find them satisfactory.

Additionally, because you departed our conversation last night abruptly – and understandably so, given my audacious intrusion – I was unable to request that you please destroy your laptop computer within twelve hours of the receipt of this message. This will ensure that no record of our conversation exists. Because I am cognizant of your need of a computer, both as a student and as a modern citizen of the twenty-first century, I have provided a duplicate of your present laptop, which you will find enclosed. Before contacting you last night, I took the liberty of downloading and duplicating your hard drive, in its state just prior to our conversation. You will find the enclosed laptop is virtually identical to your old one, complete with all your documents and files.

Additionally, it is important that there be no record of this communication or of your receipt of the case files. As such, I ask that you use the enclosed lighter to destroy this letter. After you have reviewed the Lind L. Tailor files to your satisfaction, please place all the materials in the reshipping box and deposit the package at any post office. It will be routed to the proper location.

We will be in touch soon.

Best regards,

L

* * *

For the next several hours, Ami sat in her room and examined the case files and video tapes from the box. The documents from the FBI reports sat strewn over her desktop and carpet, spread apart so she could easily refer to key pages and cross-reference facts. She had spent twenty minutes trawling through boxes in the back of her closet and in the attic to find a dusty old VCR with which she could view the video cassettes, which contained recordings of interrogations.

Hours ago, she had begun her review of the documents with a stubborn feeling of resentment, insisting to herself that it was a prank, a dupe, some kind of forgery cooked up overnight to trick her into believing that the creep on the other side of the computer was truly the world's greatest detective. It did not for a moment surprise her that he had been able to find her address to mail her this package, though it did distress her, since she believed this man to be some sort of deranged – albeit incredibly intelligent, skilled, and persistent – stalker who had come across her on the internet.

As she had realized before, however, the stalker had been nothing but pleasant and polite to her; he not tried to hurt her, not broken into her house or threatened her life. He had not lied about the enclosed laptop, either; it was an exact duplicate of her old one. It seemed strange to her that her stalker would send her a copy of her computer simply to attempt to frighten her or to prove that he could do it. He seemed to sincerely want her to destroy her old computer to eliminate any trace that the two of them had communicated. Furthermore, the more she read in the case files and the more she viewed and reviewed the interrogation tapes, the more difficult it became to confirm her suspicions that this was merely a ruse to keep up the act that her stalker was L.

Beyond the sheer volume of documents and the detail of the reports – in which she had toiled to find discrepancies and other signs of fabrication – there was a fact which directly countered her suspicions: the interrogation tapes included so many hours of footage that it would have been impossible to create mock interrogations of that length from the time she had spoken with the man who claimed to be L.

Ami sat on her desk chair, gazing blankly at a paused frame of Lind L. Tailor being interrogated in a small room by FBI agents on her television screen, and she slowly came to accept the irrefutable truth that the man she had been chatting with must have been L. Reduced to a bemused state in which she was uncertain of her own emotions, she removed her glasses before standing to eject the tape and turn off the television. He's really L, she thought over and over. For several minutes as she slowly packed the files and tapes into the reshipping box, she was stymied by the thought that she had spoken to the legendary detective. Then, with the suddenness with which the sun brightens the land after a cloud has drifted away, she began to have different thoughts, and it was these thoughts that gave her pause while she packed the box:

She had played chess with L.

L had liked her poetry.

Ami applied a firm strip of tape to the flaps of the cardboard box as her face flushed the color of cherries.

* * *

The following afternoon, Ami walked with her friends Usagi and Minako in Juban Park, which was bright with blooming flowers. The air and plants were moist from an afternoon rain, but the clouds had split earlier and yielded to the sun. The three girls pleasantly strolled the stone paths near between the trees and flowers, enjoying the spring air after school, putting off their homework for now. Neither Minako nor Usagi were in any particular rush to be home and to be compelled to do their work for the following day, but Ami, while still enjoying the walk with her friends, would periodically check her watch, anxious to be home but reluctant to rush off and leave her friends. Unlike usual, she was not especially eager to complete her homework – though she did want to do her work as well – but rather, she was anxious that the world's greatest detective might want to contact her again, and if she were not home, she feared she might miss his message.

"Ami-chan, do you need to go somewhere?" asked Minako suddenly. "You keep checking your watch."

"Oh, no!" she quickly answered. "I might get a phone call or something; that's all."

Ami quickly regretted using this explanation, even though it was mostly true, as the two girls quickly latched onto it and interpreted as they liked.

"A phone call, huh?" said Usagi suggestively, a wry grin forming on her mouth.

"From who, I wonder?" chimed in Minako, in a sing-song voice.

"A boy?" asked Usagi, leaning in front of Minako as they walked to get a better view of Ami's now reddening face.

"Yes, well, no. Not like that," Ami stuttered. "Sort of."

"Sort of?" both Minako and Usagi parroted interrogatively.

"He's sort of a boy. I mean, yes, he's a boy, but not…" she trailed off, fumbling for words to dismiss her friends' interest. She hurried to divert their attention and settled on a cheap and childish technique, pointing out over the lake and saying, "Look at that! Isn't it pretty?"

Perfectly distracted, Usagi and Minako turned around rapidly to look over the lake. "What? Where?" Suddenly realizing they'd been duped, they spun around to look at Ami again, with fierce looks on their faces. Ami shrank beneath their steely gazes. As quick as their expressions of indignation arrived, however, they melted as they looked from the cowering Ami to whatever was behind her, directly over her shoulders. Now hung looks of confusion on their faces, and Ami, alerted, turned around to see what had their attention.

Standing a few feet away was a tall man dressed in a long coat and a fedora. He carried a large briefcase in one hand and kept his other hand in a coat pocket. His face remained hidden beneath his hat and behind his raised collar. He stood still as a statue, facing the girls sternly, as if judging them.

"Ami Mizuno, I presume," a deep voice emanated from the man.

"D-do you know this man, Ami-chan?" sheepishly asked Usagi, hiding behind Ami.

"No, I don't," Ami said, not taking her eyes off the tall man directly in front of her. "Y-yes, I'm Ami Mizuno."

"Would you mind if we spoke away from anyone else? We can speak near those trees, within eyeshot of your friends if they wait here."

Hearing this, Ami went cold. This man might be L, the legend himself, standing before her. He seemed much older than she had expected, though she could not see his face to know for certain.

"Okay," she said quietly. Turning to her friends, she said, "Can you two wait for me here?"

"We'll keep a close eye on you, Ami-chan," Minako said, perhaps more gravely than she had to, as if Ami were going into a battle in which death was a near certainty. Usagi merely nodded in fearful agreement, clearly intimidated by the imposing shadowy figure.

With this assurance, Ami followed the man onto the grass toward the trees, where they were far enough away from people to avoid being heard but close enough that Ami's friends could see that she would come to no harm. When they finally halted on a patch of grass in the shade of a large maple, the man faced Ami and set his briefcase down on the ground between the two of them.

"I assume that you have shipped the package back to its origin?"

"Yes, I have," Ami answered. "Are you…?"

"I am Watari," the man began to explain. "I am the assistant of L and the only man typically able to contact him."

"I see." Ami was unsure what to make of this man, Watari, but he was privy to the contact she had with L, so he was not likely to be lying.

"Have you destroyed the message as well as your old computer?"

"Yes, I destroyed them both last night." She had done this indeed and done so quiet thoroughly. She burned the note and scattered the ashes out her window and had disassembled her computer and destroyed the hard drive and boards.

"Good," said Watari.

"I'm sorry," Ami began, "but what is it that you want? I followed all the instructions that I was given."

Watari wasted no time answering. He reached down and opened the briefcase at his feet and retrieved a laptop computer. "L wishes to speak to you directly." He opened the cover and held the laptop so that Ami could see the screen, on which a large L appeared in black Old English font on a white background. "L can see you through the camera on this computer. The microphone will allow you to speak with him."

No sound came from the laptop. The screen remained unmoving.

"…L?" Ami began tentatively, holding her hands shyly in front of her.

For a moment, there was no reply.

In the task force headquarters, Ryuzaki sat in front of a computer in his room, gazing at the live video feed of Ami Mizuno, standing awkwardly in the sunny park, waiting for him to say something. Unexpectedly, the detective suddenly felt his heart rate become rapid; his shoulders tensed. He had planned to introduce himself as he always had, simply declaring his identity of L, but now, such an introduction seemed too forward, too stern, too formal, and he became uncertain of what to say and how to say it. He could see the camera of the computer move slightly, as Watari tipped his head to quickly look and see if the computer was working properly. Ryuzaki felt unduly rushed to speak, but he knew he should not keep her waiting.

After some time of silence, a distorted voice emerged from the computer in Watari's hands:

"…Hi…"


	5. Transformations

Transformations

Disembarking a bus from Hikawa Shrine, Rei Hino walked the streets of the Minato Ward, headed into Azabu-Juban to meet her friends. Dressed fashionably in a skirt and jacket, she had attracted the attention of some men, several years older than she, who eyed her with smiles as they walked passed on the sidewalk. Presumptuously, she judged them as uncouth and contemptuously pursed her lips and turned her head away from them, as one of them lowered his sunglasses and glancingly examined her backside. Even after they were long gone, her brow retained an annoyed arched at the memory of them for some time as she walked, until a brief slinking sensation crept up her spine.

The whispering sensation of unease called her attention to a large grassy field across the street, in which several tents and wooden booths were being constructed. Rei paused near the curb to give the field a cursory examination. It looked like the beginnings of a festival: workers in simple garb diligently raised the supports for the temporary buildings. As Rei watched, two workers raised an entrance archway made up of several large poles and a wide canvas banner that read, "Spring Moon Carnival."

Nothing she saw appeared malicious, yet she knew she had felt an evil presence, however fleeting the sensation. Tenaciously insisting to herself that she was not mistaken in what she had felt, she crossed the street for a closer look. Not without admiration, she watched from the sidewalk as the large peak of a central pavilion rose toward the sky.

"Like what you see so far?" asked an enthusiastic voice from in front of her, startlingly her.

Rei nearly leapt backward into the street, as she'd not seen the man in front of her approach. He was one of the workers setting up the carnival, and there was a broad smile on his face. "It looks like it will be quite an event," she remarked.

"It won't be open until this evening," he explained, "but I hope to see you here."

He reached into his back pants pocket and produced a wrinkled paper flier. She took it with two hands and gave it a glancing inspection before politely smiling, giving a quick bow, and continuing her walk into Azuba-Juban.

* * *

With hurried excitement, Usagi pattered down the stairs to the front door of her house. Swinging open the door, she cried out an emphatic greeting: "Rei-chan! You're finally here!"

"Jeez, Usagi," Rei said curtly, walking inside, "you're acting as if you haven't seen me in a year." She slung her small bag of books to the floor and slipped off her shoes.

"I was just excited to see you, Rei-chan," Usagi whimpered. "You don't have to be so mean."

Rei couldn't help but smirk as she arched her brow in half-feigned irritation. "You weren't excited to see me; you just need my help because Ami-chan won't be here to help you study until later."

"That's not true!" quickly insisted Usagi before shortly adding, "But it's true that I really need your help since Ami-chan isn't here yet." She innocently rubbed the back of her head with her hand and smiled in appeal.

Rei, not bothering to humor Usagi's childishness, began walking upstairs toward Usagi's bedroom, and Usagi quickly followed behind her. "Are Mako-chan and Minako-chan here?"

"Yep, they're waiting up in my room."

From her jacket pocket, Rei produced the folded carnival flier and gave it another look as they walked down the upstairs hall. "Have you heard anything from Michiru-san or Haruka-san since a couple days ago?"

"Hm? Nope," replied Usagi as she opened the door to her room and let Rei inside.

Makoto, who had been sitting on the floor around the table, looked up and greeted Rei as she entered. "I'm glad you're here, Rei-chan. I was beginning to think we would have to help Usagi-chan by ourselves," she joked.

Rei sat down with her friends and amusedly said, "No one should have to suffer that fate alone."

"You guys…," Usagi moaned, trailing off.

Minako, who was reclining on Usagi's bed, trying to make sense of a page of a mathematics textbook, came to Usagi's defense, "We've all been working hard and studying, even Usagi." She made this remark also attempting to obfuscate that she herself had not been working nearly as diligently as she probably should have been.

Rei smirked. "Well, even Usagi will study when she's terrified she'll fail the final exams."

Not answering the comment verbally, Usagi tightly pouted as she sat down beside Makoto and pretended to begin reading an English textbook, the content of which she could in reality understand only the word "lunch." Her eyes traced over the words, but her mind did not remotely comprehend them. Nevertheless, determined to keep up appearances to spite Rei, she kept her attention fixed on the English sentences.

Having given Usagi a satisfactory hard time for the moment, Rei decided to raise the topic of the carnival she had seen. She had taken a seat on a cushion on the carpet beside Usagi and begun to examine again the small flier in her hand. "On my way here, I saw a carnival being set up," she began to explain.

Before Rei could say more, Usagi's attention had been seized from her feigned study of English, and she piped up. "Hm? A carnival?" she squeaked inquisitively. "Was it big? Did it look like it was going to be good?"

Resisting the immediate urge to snap at Usagi to let her finish what she was saying before interrupting, Rei said forthrightly, "I thought I felt an evil presence there." She then placed the flier on the center of the table for all the girls to see. Luna and Artemis, who had been curled up near Minako, both placed their heads over the bed's footboard to see the piece of paper. "One of the carnival workers gave me this," Rei explained. "I'm sure that I felt something."

Minako read from the wrinkled paper: "Spring Moon Carnival. Free admittance. Games, prizes, and rides for all ages. Nightly magic shows."

"Maybe a new enemy?" Makoto proposed.

Luna leapt from the bed onto the table to inspect the flier more closely. "It very well could be," the black cat remarked. "If they are new enemies, they look like they might operate much like the Dead Moon Circus."

"The similarities would be uncanny," Artemis observed gravely. "We should definitely investigate to ascertain if they are a new enemy."

Usagi folded her arms tightly and squinted, ostensibly contemplative. "Whether or not it's a new enemy," she said in a serious tone, "the carnival is worth checking out."

Minako and Makoto nodded in stern agreement. The possibility of a new enemy's appearance, they knew, could not be overlooked.

"Just a second! What do you mean 'whether or not it's a new enemy', Usagi?" Rei stabbed accusingly.

The two other girls realized at once what Usagi had meant and began to laugh nervously, and Usagi, her true intentions revealed, began stuttering nonsense in her defense. "I just- …I figured- …Oh, Rei-chan!"

"I guess Usagi is right, though," Minako offered tentatively. "If it turns out to be nothing at all, there's no harm in taking a break from studying tonight, is there?"

"I suppose not," Makoto agreed, feigning hesitation.

Luna and Artemis both breathed heavy sighs of frustration.

* * *

"That is correct, Mizuno-san. It was clear from the beginning of the investigation that Kira had access to classified police documents available only to the task force. The leakage of information ceased when the majority of the Japanese police quit, leaving only a small group, which now comprises five officers, an additional consultant, Watari, and me – a total of eight."

The disembodied and distorted voice of L had answered each of Ami's questions in full detail. She sat at her desk in her room, examining a large database spreadsheet of names on the screen of her computer – which was, to be precise, the duplicate of her original computer. Directly beside her own computer was the laptop Watari had carried in the park. The man in the long coat had given it to her following her conversation with L, and it now sat on Ami's desk with a still screen displaying only a white background and an Old English "L" as it had in the park.

Not taking her eyes from the document on her screen, Ami said quietly, almost whispering, "All of these people are dead?"

"Yes."

Ami remained silent. Looking at the cold list of names, connected with causes of death, times of death, biographical information, and details concerning the conditions and location of the person's body if it had been discovered, Ami felt heavy with the weight of the dead.

"Nearly all of them were convicted criminals or suspects," the voice of L elaborated, "but they are all victims of murder."

Through a computer screen in his room at the task force headquarters, L watched Ami Mizuno sit still as a statue while she looked at the list of thousands of names. She seemed to be deep in thought. He reached to the side of the computer, where a tray sat on the floor, and poured a cup of coffee while he waited for her to speak up again, undoubtedly with an insightful observation. As he dropped sugar cubes into the black coffee with both hands, he wondered if Mizuno could detect a pattern in the killings that he had perhaps missed or discover a clue he had overlooked. Through their discussions all afternoon, she had been able to keep track of all of the details of the case, adding to the knowledge she inferred from the analogous case he had fabricated to test her several nights ago. Her intellect was impressive still, and he could not help but admire her. Curiously, as he imagined Ami's next words offering penetrating insight into the Kira investigation, he felt no envy, not a tinge of hypothesized defeat. In fact, the idea excited him.

Though the thought that she could assist the case pleased him, it also puzzled him that he did not feel threatened by her abilities. Like Light, she was able to keep up with him. Unlike Light, she had been able to offer advice that had probably saved his life for the time being. Though her deductive skills had undoubtedly been swifter several days ago, as he felt hollow and sluggish, she had outdone him, played a better game than he. It was strange, then, that he felt so uncharacteristically appreciative, even pleased that she had been the one to protect him. It was baffling to him that he was not more ambivalent. Confused, he poured milk into his coffee cup from a small pitcher.

When he looked back at the computer monitor, he found Ami Mizuno still gazing blankly at the list of names, but her eyes gleamed with saline, and her lips quavered.

"What's wrong?" asked L's distorted voice from the computer. "What's wrong, Mizuno-san?"

She turned away from L's computer, embarrassed, and wiped her eyes on the sleeve of her shirt. "I'm sorry," she whispered, still turned away from the camera, feeling L's gaze on her, wherever he was. "All these people…" she trailed off. Regaining some composure, she straightened up in her seat and said, "It's wretched."

"I agree," replied the voice of L. "These killings are the most heinous crime I have ever investigated. It is all quite wretched."

"No," she began quietly, almost cowering, as if in the presence of something awesome and terrible. "I don't mean the killing, though the killing is horrible, too. I mean the power to kill in this way. That is what is wretched."

She looked to the computer, at the unmoving Old English letter "L", as if it were alive, as if it were a face, and she waited for a reply. There was silence for a while; then L spoke. "Indeed, I have thought that as well," he said. "One of the police officers on the task force once said so also."

"I'd very much like to meet the task force," she modestly offered. "And you."

"I am afraid that is not possible," L answered quickly. "I offered to the task force that you join us, but the others felt that it would be irresponsible of us to endanger the life of a young high school student with no investigative experience. I attempted to convince them otherwise, but they insisted. Though I am in charge of the task force, I would rather not so blatantly go against their wishes in this way."

"But you asked me to help you, didn't you?"

"I did, yes," he admitted immediately. "I did so of my own accord, without telling the members of the task force. Besides us, only Watari knows that we are in contact. This is our secret, you might say."

Ami looked down at her feet for a moment and shyly pressed her hands against the seat of her chair. "I see," she said meekly. She was uncomfortable with this arrangement, though she had agreed in the park to help L. Reluctantly, she had agreed not to tell her friends that it was L who had made contact with her; he had provided the cover story that Watari had been a representative of an elite cram school which made special offers to exceptional students for early preparation courses for university entrance exams. Though she had agreed, knowing she was little more than a consultant on an investigation of incredible breadth, she nevertheless felt slighted. She understood why she could not openly tell her friends L had contacted her; she felt slighted that she could not work directly with the task force and with L, face-to-face. She admitted to herself that feeling this way was rather selfish, and she knew she had little right to demand that the world's greatest detective cede to her request that she meet the task force and the legend himself. Understandable as it was why they did not want her to risk her life, she wanted very much – though she would admit this much to herself only in the slightest, most fleeting ways – to meet the man on the other side of the computer, who had said he had liked her poetry.

Interrupting her thoughts, Ami's phone suddenly rang on the surface of her desk. She promptly scooped it up and saw that it was Usagi who was calling. "Excuse me," she said to L, before answering the phone.

"Hello?"

"Ami-chan! It's Usagi!"

"I'm sorry I wasn't able to come to the study group earlier," she immediately apologized.

"That's okay, Ami-chan," she consoled before adding quietly, "though we could really use your help." Usagi giggled nervously. "Can you come in an hour maybe?"

"An hour? I suppose I should be able to make it in an hour."

"Great!" cheered Usagi. "Also, there's something else." Her tone shifted dramatically, much graver now. "Rei-chan sensed something that could be a new enemy today."

Ami suddenly became hotly nervous. She did not think that L could hear Usagi's side of her phone conversation from the computer microphone, but it unsettled Ami having a conversation about the possibility of a new enemy having appeared and knowing that there was a slight chance it might be overheard. She made no reply to Usagi and did her best not to change expressions overtly and risk revealing to L that Usagi had told her something so important.

"It was at a carnival Rei saw being set up. It opens tonight," Usagi explained. "So we're going there tonight to investigate – and if it turns out there's no enemy, we can still have fun!"

"A carnival?" Ami repeated. "Okay, that sounds good."

"Hm? Is something wrong, Ami-chan? You sound weird and nervous."

"No," she insisted. "Everything's fine. I'll be there in an hour! Bye!"

"Bye bye, Ami-chan!"

Ami shut her phone and turned to the L on the computer screen. "I have to study with my friends," she said to L. "The final exams are coming up, so we all need to study hard."

After a moment of quiet, L's voice emerged from the computer: "A person of your intellectual ability should have no difficulty performing on any kind of test, even without studying."

Ami's cheeks flushed a slight red. Flattered, she replied, "That's no reason not to study." She then added, "And my friends need help."

As she rose and began to pack books into a knapsack, she explained further to L, "I may not be back until much later tonight. My friends want to go to a carnival." She felt guilty distorting the truth with L, but she knew there was little choice in the matter.

"A carnival?"

"Yes," she confirmed. "It's going to open tonight, not far from my friend Usagi's house."

After a brief pause, L's distorted voice said, "I see."

"I'm sorry I can't help you more right now," Ami apologized.

"Your help in the investigation should not interfere with your normal life, Mizuno-san," the voice of L said, not patronizingly. "I ask only that you leave your computer connected to this one while you are gone so that in the unlikely case that someone discovers that I have been in touch with you, I can directly destroy the majority of the evidence of our contact."

"Of course," Ami said, as she zipped up her knapsack and slung it over one shoulder. "I'll be sure to get in touch with you tomorrow. I hope I can help you."

"Yes, I hope so, too," replied the voice of L. Following a pause, he said, "Enjoy your evening." With this farewell, the screen of the laptop went black.

* * *

In his mostly unlit room at the task force headquarters, Light Yagami sat at the writing desk, shining a small lamp on the few resources he had: his phone, a pen, a closed laptop computer, and a copy of the latest list of criminals Misa had killed. It was only a short matter of time, he knew, before L would be able to test the notebook and disprove the thirteen day rule. It would be a bold move indeed if L were to later destroy the notebook and risk the lives of everyone who had touched the notebook, but he had little doubt L would have the audacity to do this. L would be able to undo everything his several-month-long gambit had done. Irritating as his loss was, he knew also he had no time to dawdle with petty emotions.

Light's back was against the proverbial wall; he was desperate, but at least now he was thinking clearly. He had been sure to rest last night so that his mind and body would be refreshed, though in doing so he had shifted his body's already tenuous chronotype out of sync with the others'. After pulling so many consecutive all-nighters, most of the task force had taken to sleeping in the afternoon, with only Matsuda – who had slept on a typical schedule during the late part of the Yotsuba investigation and during the last several days – awake at normal hours. Ryuzaki was continuously the exception; he seemed to operate at all hours of the day, and Light had only seen him sleep occasionally and only for about thirty minutes at a time. Now only Light had forced himself to sleep at night, only he and Matsuda remained on normal human schedules. At this hour, only Matsuda would be awake in the main room below. Whether he would be spending his waking hour productively was another issue entirely. Ryuzaki, however, had been spending more and more time in his own quarters lately, much to Light's curiosity. Perhaps he felt secure enough in his countermeasures to separate himself from Light and not keep an eye on him at every hour, or perhaps he needed privacy to plan his next move against Kira. Whatever he was doing, however, the time away from Ryuzaki was precious to Light, who needed time to assemble his own counterattack against L.

His mind raced through the facts he was certain L knew, the facts he was certain L could not know, and his objectives. He leaned back in his seat and folded his arms snuggly across his chest. He contemplated stilly in this position for several minutes before, in a stroke of panicked inspiration, he opened the laptop on the desk and began searching immediately through American news reports on the internet. As he trawled through news report after news report, his plan assembled itself in his mind like a symphony, each part playing out in its particular notes, and when a part seemed incomplete, he immediately fed himself more information in the form of news reports to fill the spaces with harmony, until he discovered the precisely what he sought: the inchoate elements of the final piece of his symphony.

L could anticipate many of Kira's moves now – almost any of his moves. Not even the world's greatest detective, however, could predict a clamor emerging _dal niente_, out of silence.

Swiftly downloading several audio manipulation tools onto the laptop, Light wrote a voice distorter not unlike the one Ryuzaki typically used in his communications as L. He then plugged a headset into the laptop and routed a phone call through the computer directly to the Director of the FBI. Though he knew that the FBI had abandoned the Kira investigation, he knew also that the FBI would not decline a request for material if it came from L – at least ostensibly. Adopting the poise and demeanor of Ryuzaki, Light convinced the FBI Director by the time he had said, "I am L."

After a brief conversation, Light disconnected the headset and began reformatting the hard drive of the computer to wipe any trace of his activity from it. He then leaned back in his seat and did not fight an impulse to smile broadly at his accomplishment. His plan was not ready to be set into full motion, but the foundation was being laid. He chuckled quietly to himself in the dim light.

"Light Yagami," a stern voice erupted from behind him. Immediately, he recognized it as the voice of the shinigami Rem.

He spun in the desk chair to face her. "Rem," he began, "it's dangerous for us to talk like this."

"The humans are either away or asleep," she explained impatiently. "Tell me your plan. What are you doing? You have put Misa and yourself in great danger! That man Ryuzaki is shrewd and skilled; he will catch Misa if you do nothing!" One of Rem's bony fingers jutted out toward Light's face. "This is your fault! I cannot kill him now that he has told the others that if he dies you are the criminal they are hunting, and if I did, you know that it would kill me to protect Misa's life. You knew this! You bastard, you set this up to kill both that man Ryuzaki and to kill me, didn't you? That was your plan, wasn't it? It was your plan, but it backfired! And now both you and Misa are in danger!"

"Calm down, Rem," Light urged her, not moving from his seat. "It's true my first plan didn't work, but everything is in hand. And for the record, I wasn't trying to kill you; I thought Misa would remember Ryuzaki's real name once she touched the Death Note again, but she couldn't. She could have killed him right then and there, but she forgot. That's what went wrong; I wasn't trying to kill you." Though he kept cool and collected, he hoped that Rem would believe his lie: though he had hoped Misa would remember L's name, he also hoped the situation would require Rem to protect Misa as well and be killed in the process, thus relieving him of another threat. "Relax, Rem. I have a new plan. I only need a little more time."

Light, confident in the confluence of his new plan, rose and smirked.

"Don't worry. Misa will be safe soon," he reassured. "I need only one thing from you: When I say the phrase, 'We can't die yet," it means that I have forfeited ownership of the Death Note."

* * *

Ryuzaki emerged from his room and descended the stairs into the main room of headquarters with one hand in a pocket and his other hand holding up his cell phone to see the time. Replacing the phone in his pocket and reaching the bottom of the steps, he saw Matsuda sitting alone at the central table, where numerous files and folders were laid out as usual. With his jacket off and tie loosened, he leaned his head on a fist and read a book. The rest of the task force had fallen asleep, as usual for this particular time of day now, on the floor and couches. Hearing Ryuzaki's feet against the floor, Matsuda looked up from his book to see the man awkwardly ambling toward the table to sit with him.

"Oh, hi, Ryuzaki," he said, smiling nervously. With a quick fumbling movement, he swept the book off the table and onto his lap, where he hoped to hide it from Ryuzaki's critical scrutiny. He was, however, too slow, and Ryuzaki had seen that it was a manga book. "Everyone else is asleep."

"What about Yagami-kun?" inquired Ryuzaki, lifting himself into a squat on the seat across from Matsuda.

"He's up in his room, I think."

"I see," acknowledged Ryuzaki. He then looked over toward the couches and cushioned chairs at the sleeping members of the task force. Satisfied that they were indeed asleep, he returned his gaze to Matsuda and said quietly, "Matsuda-san, do you think you could help me with something?"

"Sure, I guess," Matsuda agreed. "I don't want to be your errand boy, though, so don't ask me to get you coffee or something."

"This is much more important than coffee, Matsuda-san," Ryuzaki said flatly. "I need to go somewhere this evening, but I don't want to be too far away from this or leave it unattended." He lifted the notebook from the table by its corners.

"You need to go somewhere?" The young police detective was confused by the request but even more idea that Ryuzaki had to go somewhere. "Can't you take it with you then?"

"I could," admitted Ryuzaki, "but I would rather not have it on my person. It would be better if I had someone with me who was carrying the notebook, keeping it hidden and making sure that no one else could touch it."

Matsuda remained confused. "I don't get it. Couldn't you just keep it hidden yourself?"

"Do you have a problem helping me, Matsuda-san?" asked Ryuzaki, dryly.

"No, it's just that I don't know why you're asking me to do this. I don't see how having me carry the notebook makes it any safer than if you carry it. What could go wrong?"

"Someone could touch it accidentally," Ryuzaki quickly and cryptically explained. "Are you afraid of the notebook? Are you afraid to carry it?"

"No," he said instantly. "Well, yes, I'm scared of the notebook, but no, I'm not afraid to carry it."

"Then will you help me?"

"Yeah, sure, I guess."

"Good." Ryuzaki seemed satisfied. He even smiled a tiny grin, much to Matsuda's further confusion. "You should change your clothes, too. You should not dress like a police officer. We must remain incognito."

Matsuda stood up and picked up his jacket. "This sounds important." Clumsily, he hid the manga book under his suit jacket. "What are we doing?"

"Meet me in the lobby when you have changed your clothes, please." Ryuzaki then picked up the notebook, stood, and made for the elevators. On his way, he fetched a pair of tattered sneakers he had left in the corner of the room.

* * *

Light descended from his room carrying a small envelope under his arm. The main room was dark. The overhead lights had been switched off; most of the monitors were blank. The task force, including his father, slept on the couches, chairs, and floor. Ryuzaki and Matsuda, however, were unaccounted for. Curious but unworried, Light continued toward the elevator corridor until his eye caught sight of one of the building security camera monitors under the main screen in the rear of the room. On the monitor, he could see Ryuzaki waiting in the lobby, holding the notebook. On another monitor, he saw Matsuda on an elevator descending toward the lobby. Immediately, Light bolted for the elevators and pressed the down button frantically, unsure exactly what was happening but knowing it was potentially bad for him.

"Rem," he said in a whisper, making sure none of the task force could hear him, "I need you to go to the lobby and follow the notebook, not me. Can you do that? If you don't, Ryuzaki will realize that _I_ am in possession of the Death Note."

Understanding but saying nothing, Rem melted through the floor, flying toward the lobby.

Light spent his time in the elevator regaining his composure and considering what Ryuzaki could possibly be doing. He went over his cover story again in his mind, double-checking that it was plausible. When the elevator doors opened to the lobby, he was no closer to guessing what Ryuzaki could be doing, but he had, at least, a plan to find out. As he stepped out of the elevator, he saw Rem standing in the corner of the lobby as Ryuzaki handed the notebook to Matsuda, who tucked the book into the back of his waistband.

"Hey, what are you guys doing?" Light asked pleasantly and conversationally.

Ryuzaki turned, surprised to see him. "Yagami-kun, I didn't expect to see you here," he said, evading the question. "What's in the envelope?"

"Oh, this?" Light held up the sealed envelope. "I haven't been able to spend much time with Misa lately, so I figured I'd write her something. I'm going to mail it. Where are you and Matsuda going?"

Matsuda smiled nervously and rubbed the back of his head, unsure if he should attempt to answer. Ryuzaki, however, retained the blank expression on his face and said, "I am exploring an unlikely possibility. We are going to a carnival."

Light's jaw fell open in surprise. "A carnival? Why?"

"We know that the notebook is supernatural, and we know that it functions based on set rules. The shinigami has told us as much, and the fact there are rules written in the notebook informs us as much also," Ryuzaki explained, his expression still unchanging. "I am exploring the possibility that other paranormal events could offer insight into the notebook's mechanics. Even if I cannot find a proper paranormal practitioner at a carnival, perhaps the people there will be able to direct us toward actual practitioners."

Light stared at the world's greatest detective in utter disbelief, holding back his indignant incredulity. "I understand that you would want to exhaust every possibility, but isn't this stretching it a bit?" he asked, struggling to conceal how appalled he was at the mere suggestion of examining the notebook with paranormal studies. "This isn't like you, Ryuzaki, relying on blind conjecture, especially on something as dubious as the paranormal."

"Yagami-kun, we have come across a notebook with the power to kill; there is a shinigami standing in the corner of this room," L expatiated. "It was not terribly long ago that an enormous amount of damage was inflicted on Tokyo by some large, unknown force defying all scientific explanations; the year before that, a giant figure appeared in the sky threatening to burn the city; people in Japan and England have reported seeing young women dressed in sailor fukus performing superhuman feats. I think, Yagami-kun, we must admit that there is much in the world which eludes normal scientific study."

As shoddy as Light found this logic, he knew that as long as Matsuda and Ryuzaki had the notebook, it was imperative that he remained close to them. Otherwise, it would become clear that Rem was following him and not the notebook. Though he felt like a fool agreeing to Ryuzaki's absurd thinking, he nodded and said, "I understand. You're right. We should give it a try, even if it turns out to be bogus." He then added, "Even so, maybe you shouldn't go out yourself, Ryuzaki."

"I don't believe this is a task I should delegate, Yagami-kun," Ryuzaki vaguely insisted.

"Very well," Light surrendered. "In that case, I'd like to go with you. There's not much I can do here at headquarters, and you could use my help if you do find something valuable."

Ryuzaki took a moment to study Light's face after he said this. Though he suspected doleful intent, Ryuzaki could draw no substantive conjecture as to what Light had in mind with this move. If he was indeed Kira, as Ryuzaki suspected, then perhaps he merely wanted to keep an eye on him. That seemed unlikely, however, given that Light and Ryuzaki had spent several hours apart throughout the last few days. Whatever Light's intentions were in following him now, Ryuzaki suspected that Light's correspondence with Misa was likely merely a cover for some greater plan. There was not enough information or evidence to discern the reasons behind any of this, though, and he could not reasonably order Light to stay behind.

"Certainly, you're welcome to come along."

* * *

In unison, Luna and Artemis leapt in through the open window of Usagi Tsukino's bedroom landing softly on the rabbit print bedsheets. Their rapid entrance turned the heads of the five girls, who were all huddled around the table, where Ami had been demonstrating application of the quadratic formula. The two cats perched on the edge of the bed facing the girls, whose attention they already had.

"We checked out the carnival," Artemis began.

"There was definitely a dark presence there," Luna continued, "but we were chased off the lot before we could locate its exact origin."

Usagi let out a heaving groan and hung her head. "Aw, I was really hoping we could just go and enjoy the carnival," she lamented, "but now we might have to fight."

"We don't know what it is yet, though," Artemis pointed out. "All of the workers setting up the carnival seemed to be normal humans. We couldn't find any definite sign of new enemy. All we know is that there's an evil presence."

"The only thing we've been able to do is confirm Rei-chan's report," Luna said. She then leapt onto the table in front of the girls. "We have to check it out, as we planned."

Ami looked over her shoulder, out the open window. The curtains were billowing in the light evening breeze. The sun was already setting, the sky darkening. The blue-haired girl stood up from her place on the carpet and leaned on the window sill. She wondered, as she looked out at the lights of Tokyo in the evening, whether this would be the beginning of another long series of battles – and if it was, then would it interfere with her helping L? She remembered the list of names she had begun to examine earlier. Neatly arranged in the database, all that death seemed orderly and organized, as if it were part of something hateful but routine.

"I don't want to have to fight again!" Usagi whined from behind Ami. "I was just getting used to it being peaceful!"

"Usagi, it's not like any of us _want_ to fight," Rei scolded, "but if we have to, then that's what we'll do."

Listening only partly to her friends as they continued to chatter gregariously about the state of peace and whether or not they would have to fight, Ami said drearily, "It's as if it never ends sometimes. We're always fighting." This remark silenced the room.

"Ami-chan," Usagi began softly, her tone having morphed from selfish and whiny to gentle and caring, "are you all right?" She stood up and leaned against the wall beside Ami, studying her friend's somber face.

"Hm? Me?" Ami feigned surprise and swiftly dispelled the melancholy from her face. "Yes, I'm fine. I was just thinking there wouldn't be a lot of time to study for the final exams if we're busy fighting again." Lying with a caricature of herself, Ami put on a false smile to ameliorate Usagi's concern, not wanting to trouble her friends with her grim thoughts.

Whether sensing that Ami was trying to deceive her and accepting that Ami did not want to speak openly about what bothered her at the moment or being genuinely duped by Ami's mendacity, Usagi smiled caringly and giggled, "Only you would worry about something like that, Ami-chan."

"We had better get going," Minako suggested, rising from the carpet after shutting a textbook on the table. "Besides, if I look at one more quadratic equation, I think I'm going to _want_ to fight something."

* * *

Walking down the streets of the Minato Ward of Tokyo, Light, Ryuzaki, and Matsuda made a strange trio. The trio was, in fact, a quartet, as the white shinigami Rem flew slowly behind them, unseen by any observers. Ryuzaki led the group, as only he knew the way to the carnival, and this outing was, after all, his plan. Behind him, Light kept his hands in the pockets of his jacket as they walked and kept a close eye on Ryuzaki. Behind Light, Matsuda walked nervously, feeling uneased by the god of death hovering silently behind him and feeling out of place among the two incredible intellects in front of him. His nervousness was compounded by the killing notebook tucked behind his light spring jacket and under his shirt, which was not in itself dangerous, but just to feel the dark cover of the book against his skin, knowing it was and could be a murder weapon again, was unsettling.

The entrance of the carnival lot was less than a block away, straight ahead. Bright hanging lights, red, yellow, orange, green, and violet, illuminated the lot like a brushfire. Though it had not been long since the sun had set, the lot was already busy and bustling with people moving to and from stalls and pavilions. Their merriment could be heard even where Ryuzaki, Light, and Matsuda; laughter and cheers and clapping loudly rang through the streets.

"Wow," smiled Matsuda in childlike awe. "I didn't expect a local event like this to attract so many people. It looks amazing."

"It's been a long time since I've been to a carnival," Light commented conversationally. Even he could not help but feel somewhat taken by the brightness and bliss of the place they approached. "The last time I went to a carnival or a festival was with my father when I was a child."

Ryuzaki said nothing but continued to lead the group up to the archway, where a greeter wearing slacks and a red waistcoat warmly welcomed them with a bow. "Welcome to the Spring Moon Carnival!" the man joyfully called as the three of them entered.

While Light and Matsuda stepped into the lot and began curiously turning about to see what attractions the place had to offer, Ryuzaki stopped in front of the greeter with his hands in his pockets. "Can you please tell me if there is a fortune teller here?" he asked in monotone.

"Yessir!" cried the greeter. "Go down that alley of stalls" – he pointed with his index finger down a long way of brightly lit stalls, pavilions, and rides – "and at the first turn, you'll find one of the finest fortune tellers in the country!"

"Good," Ryuzaki replied simply, before turning and rejoining his two companions and the shinigami hovering over them. He pointed down the alley the man had indicated. "It's this way. Please do not wander off, Matsuda-san." The man began ambling down toward the fortune teller's tent without another word.

"I'm not going to wander off!" Matsuda shouted at Ryuzaki's back before following.

As they walked toward their objective, past crowds of people spending their money on carnival food and games, Light smirked to himself and thought of how much Ryuk probably would have liked to have seen this place.

* * *

The girls and the cats had split up to cover more ground and search for the source of the presence Rei had felt. Usagi, Rei, Makoto, and Luna walked around the northern half of the carnival, while Ami, Minako, and Artemis patrolled the southern half. Neither group could truthfully claim to be totally dedicated to the task of hunting down whatever evil lurked in the carnival: the lights were bright and pretty, the food sweet-smelling and delicious, rides fun and tempting, the shows enthralling.

Rei and Luna, however, were able to keep their respective group mostly on point, but even in the first thirty minutes they had been there, Usagi had already more than once wandered off to buy overpriced food from nearby stalls. Now that Usagi's hands were full with a paper box of dumplings and a pair of chopsticks so she could not stop to buy more food until she was finished, Rei took advantage of the situation and led Usagi and the rest of the group away from the food stands and toward the large center pavilion, which held an auditorium where a large magic show was to be underway soon.

Meanwhile, Ami and Minako worked their way through crowds of people playing games, throwing bean bags and swinging hammers and demonstrating their coordination or lack thereof. For the most part, they had managed to avoid distraction thanks to Artemis reminding them of their duty whenever Minako's eyes locked on an amusing game for which she fancied she might have some skill or on a handsome stall attendant. It was not terribly long, however, until Minako caught sight of a trivia game – and caught sight of the top shelf of excellently crafted stuffed prizes – and began to cajole Ami into playing, assuring her that it would only take a minute and that she was sure to win. Despite Ami and Artemis's best efforts at dissuading her, Minako succeeded in bodily dragging Ami to the stall by the arm and paying the attendant for a round of play.

* * *

Near the center of the carnival lot, a group of three girls caught the acute and discerning eye of the shinigami Rem. Her catlike eye fixated on them curiously, but she said nothing to the humans she hovered over about what she saw. The three girls – along with the black cat that followed them – entered the center pavilion, not far from the fortune telling tent by which she was floating.

Below her, Light, Ryuzaki, and Matsuda remained on a short line to enter the fortune teller's tent. With the exception of the three young men, the line was populated entirely by couples, most of them arm-in-arm, snuggled close in the cool spring night. Matsuda was, among the three, the only one to feel intensely awkward about the composition of the line waiting to enter the tent. Light, in contrast, simply felt intensely irritated at how silly he thought it was to visit a fortune teller as part of the Kira investigation. Ryuzaki's thoughts and feelings were inscrutable on his blank face; he simply stared down the row of stalls and pavilions, toward the entrance of the show tent.

Ryuzaki was certain that he had seen two of the girls from the café where he had eaten several days ago, the day he had by happenstance met Ami Mizuno. These girls, he knew from researching Mizuno, were her friends. Therefore, he inferred, Mizuno must be nearby – but she was not with her friends, which was odd indeed, since he knew that she was quite close with her friends. They could have perhaps split up into separate groups, but that in itself would have been quite strange as well. From his investigation into Ami Mizuno – examining her bank records, spending habits, travel records, academic reports, and anything else he could acquire – he knew that she and her friends studied together, ate together, traveled together; it struck him as incredibly odd that she was not with them. Her absence was vexing, but he knew that he could not act yet.

"It looks like it will be quite a while until we are able to reach the fortune teller. Perhaps the couple inside has a great deal of questions," remarked Ryuzaki. He then reached into his pants pocket and produced a tight crumbled ball of one-thousand yen notes and held them out to Light. "Yagami-kun, would you mind going to the stall down the row and buying me a cup of mochi ice cream?"

Slightly annoyed that he was requesting something so trivial, Light silently wanted to pass the menial task off to Matsuda, but he swallowed his pride and took the money from Ryuzaki's hand. "Sure," he said quietly and begrudgingly. "I'll be back in a minute." He began to walk down the alley of stalls, thankful that Rem had the good sense to stay with Ryuzaki and Matsuda and not follow him.

Immediately after Light was out of earshot, as it was the first time since Light had joined them in the lobby of headquarters that Ryuzaki and Matsuda were separated from him, Matsuda faced Ryuzaki and hurried said, "What are we doing here, Ryuzaki? You didn't say anything about visiting a fortune teller when you explained why you wanted to come here."

Ryuzaki looked up at Matsuda from his hunched posture, his eyes narrowed slightly, as if mildly annoyed that Matsuda could not grasp an obvious fact. "I lied to Yagami-kun about my intentions," he stated flatly and directly. "I needed to tell him something that sounded plausible; I hadn't expected him to come along."

"So you didn't lie to me?"

"No, Matsuda-san," Ryuzaki reassured, "I didn't lie to you. There's absolutely no reason to suspect that this fortune teller will help. In fact, I think the idea is ridiculous."

"Then what are we going to do? Just go through with this fortune teller thing?" asked Matsuda, clearly annoyed that they were wasting their time.

"I have a plan," Ryuzaki said cryptically as he turned to move forward in line. There was only one couple between them and the opening of the tent now. As he took a few steps forward on the line, his eye was caught by the sight of a girl with blue hair running up the row of stalls, with a blond girl and a white cat. His eyes widened with recognition as he watched them duck into the show tent.

It had not been difficult at all to find her.

"Ryuzaki…," Matsuda began.

"Yes, I saw her."

* * *

Parting the flaps of the show tent and rushing into a small foyer, Ami, Minako, and Artemis stopped short in their dash when a carnival worker dressed in a tailcoat stood in their way of entering the auditorium. "Whoa! Slow down, girls! This show is almost over," the attendant said. "There's another show in about twenty minutes."

Hunched over and breathing heavily and wearily from the sprint, Ami looked up at the man. "Please, we'd like to get into this show," she pleaded. Realizing how strange it would be to demand so desperately to enter a show that was already half done, she took a deep breath and said pleasantly, "You see, our friends are inside already. We'd really like to see the rest of the show with them. We'll pay full price."

Taking sympathy on the girls, the attendant smiled and agreed to let them inside, on the condition that they would be quiet as they entered the auditorium and sat down. He took their money and parted the curtain that led into the show.

Inside, the only lights were on the stage. In the darkness, rows of seated carnival-goers watched the performance in awe. Indeed, so incredible was the show that the moment Ami and Minako walked into the auditorium, they stopped where they stood and simply watched, transfixed on the stage, instead of finding their friends in the crowd. Both the performed feat itself as well as the realization of the potential seriousness of the situation held them fast.

Onstage, a magician with dyed red hair wearing a long coat over a bare chest juggled balls of fire – not flaming objects, as near as Ami, Minako, and Artemis could tell, but rather simply orbs of flame. The stage itself was surrounded by a ring of fire, which had no apparent source of fuel. With flair and style, the magician hurled each of the five spheres of flame he juggled into the air, and with the guidance of gestures of his hands, they flew through the air over the crowd's heads at his command. The glow of the flame illuminated the amazed faces of the audience: jaws agape, eyes wide.

Ami, Minako, and Artemis knew that this performance was no trick. This man could manipulate fire. It was now apparent why Rei had sent her frantic text message to come to the show tent immediately.

The two girls and the white cat walked around the back of the round auditorium in search of their friends. It did not take long to find them in the rearmost row of seats. Minako and Ami crouched just behind the seats of their friends, who had not noticed they had arrived, as they were watching the performance with their entire attention.

"Guys!" sharply whispered Minako, getting the attention of the others.

"Ami! Minako!" cried Usagi, struggling to keep her voice down. "Do you see this?"

"Of course we see it!" Minako whispered, annoyed.

"People all over the carnival were saying how spectacular this show was," Makoto explained softly. "I see why. This has to be real power."

Rei did not take her eyes off the magician onstage. "That tiny crystal he's wearing around his neck," she said quietly. "It looks familiar."

Before the girls had a chance to look at what Rei had just pointed out, the magician engulfed the entire stage in an enormous column flame. The heat of the fire warmed the tent like an oven, before it vanished into smokeless oblivion and darkness, as the lights had been turned off as well. In a flash, the tent lights snapped back on, revealing the stage unburned and the magician unharmed standing in the center, taking a bow. The audience went mad with applause for the amazing performance.

"Ladies and gentlemen!" the magician called out to the audience. "I hope that you enjoyed the show!" He paced across the stage, looking out at the audience's faces, which were visible now that the tent was fully lit. He smirked wryly after giving the audience a final look, turning completely around to examine the entire crowd. "It seems that this show completely sold out. Every seat is filled, and there are even some people standing in the back. That's perfect."

"What's going on?" asked Ami, growing increasingly suspicious of the magician, almost to the level of alarm.

"Please don't go for the exits!" the magician called out, as several people in the audience began to rise from their seats. "I need you to stay!" Raising his arms suddenly, each of the exit curtains were blocked by rising walls of flame. The people nearest the exits reeled backward in panic, screaming in horror and colliding with other people behind them.

The girls sprang to their feet and gasped. Minako, Ami, Makoto, and Rei began reaching for their Crystal Change Rods and Usagi her brooch, but they had barely touched their magical items when the wood panel flooring of the auditorium fell open, revealing a large trap passage down which the entire audience, including the girls, fell into darkness. The screams of those within the show tent went unheard by those already lining up for the next show.

* * *

After waiting briefly on a line at the snack stall, Light finally bought the mochi ice cream Ryuzaki requested. With a sigh of annoyance, he moved to return to the fortune telling tent. About halfway down the row of stalls, from behind him he heard the calling voice of a young girl:

"Big brother? Hey, Light!"

Light spun around in stark surprise to see his younger sister Sayu and two of her school friends running up to him, weaving between groups of carnival-goers. He felt a rush of embarrassment at the fact he was caught by his sister performing a menial task for Ryuzaki, but he tempered his irritation, though he allowed his surprise to go unchecked. "Sayu, what are you doing here?" he asked as she stopped in front of him.

"What am I doing here?" she giggled. "I could ask the same to you! We heard about this carnival from some people in school and decided to check it out. It turned out to be great! What about you, Light? A carnival is the last place I'd expect to find a top-ranked university student!" She laughed, obviously amused that she had caught her brother away from his studies and away from any sign of work.

"I'm here with some friends, actually," Light said. "I need to meet up with them again."

"Friends, huh?" Sayu began, adopting a suggestive tone. "Are you here with Misa Amane? I'm sure my friends would love to meet her!"

"No," Light said curtly. "Misa's not here." He looked pathetically down at the cold mochi pieces in the paper cup in his hand. "I really ought to get back to my friends now, Sayu. It was nice to see you."

Before he could turn to leave, however, Sayu said, "Hey, before you go, Light, can I ask a favor?" Her face became pleading and soft. "The three of us are a little short on money, but we'd really like to see the magic show. It's supposed to be amazing! I don't think it's something you'd go in for, but do you think you could…?"

"Lend you money?" Light filled in. With another sigh of annoyance, he dug into his jacket pocket and produced the yen notes Ryuzaki had given him. "Here, Sayu. You can have this. Just remember to pay me back sometime, all right?"

"Wow, thanks, big brother!" Sayu cried emphatically. "You're the best! I'll let you run off to meet your friends now!"

With that, Light's sister and her friends gigglingly departed toward the show tent in the center of the carnival lot.

By the time Light returned to the fortune teller's tent, he saw that Matsuda and Ryuzaki were no longer on the line; only a few couples were waiting there. He approached the pair at the front of the line, whom he recognized as the couple who had been directly behind the three of them before he had left. "Excuse me, I was with two friends: a man in a dark blue jacket and a guy who was kind of hunched over. Are they inside now?"

"Oh, them," said the man he asked. "Yeah, they went in a minute or two ago."

After thanking them, Light quickly parted the flaps of the tent and entered. The small tent was dimly lit by candle light, with a single table in the center, arranged with faux mystical items, including cards and a glass ball. Several chairs were arranged on one side of the table, while on the other side, there was only a large cushioned seat, presumably for the fortune teller, who was oddly absent. Only Matsuda sat in one of the patron seats, looking bored and leaning on his fist. The shinigami Rem stood in the rear of the tent, out of the way.

"Matsuda, where is Ryuzaki?" Light asked, confused. "Where's the fortune teller?"

"Oh, Light-kun!" Matsuda said, startled by Light's appearance. "How are you?" he continued, clearly nervous.

Immediately realizing Ryuzaki was undoubtedly up to something, Light slammed the cup of mochi ice cream onto the table. "Matsuda, what's going on!"

"Don't be mad at me, Light-kun! I'm just doing what Ryuzaki told me to do!"

"And what did he tell you to do?" Light interrogated, standing over the cowering Matsuda.

"He came in here with me, apologized to the fortune teller, saying that he didn't want his fortune told," Matsuda reluctantly explained, clearly intimidated. "Then he gave the fortune teller a bunch of money and asked if she would take a ten minute break and pretend that she was with us the whole time. He asked me to stay here in case you came back."

"Where the hell is he? Where is Ryuzaki?"

"Please stop yelling at me, Light-kun! You're really scary when you're like this!" pleaded Matsuda.

"Where is he, Matsuda?" persisted Light, only getting angrier. "I got this damn ice cream for him; where the hell has he gone!"

"He left the tent!" cried Matsuda, terrified of Light. "He crawled under the side of the tent."

"Why? Where was he going?"

"He was probably going to the magic show in the big tent," he explained without elaboration, not wanting to betray what Ryuzaki had entrusted to him.

"Great," spat Light sarcastically, calmer but still angry. "He and my sister can enjoy the damn magic show."

Now that Light had ceased his interrogation, Matsuda stood up from the uncomfortable seat. "Your sister?"

"Yeah, I ran into her on the way back from running Ryuzaki's errand," Light explained. "Come on, Matsuda. Let's get Ryuzaki. I don't like it when he screws around with us like this."

* * *

As Ryuzaki approached the central pavilion, where the magic show was being held, he watched the line of people outside the entranceway begin to shorten as they were admitted into the tent. Another show must have been about to begin, he deduced. If that were the case, he figured, then the show Ami Mizuno had darted into must be dismissing its audience. Eager to catch sight of Ami again, Ryuzaki quickly walked to the other side of the tent, to the flaps marked as the exit. Curiously, no one emerged. Taking a quick look around, there was not a substantial crowd in the immediate area. He expected that there would have been a large number of people walking out of the show tent, or at least, there would be a lot in the area directly outside the exit, where people might remain after a show ended.

The exit flaps were unattended, so he approached cautiously and peeked inside. A potent smell of sulfur filled his nostrils as he placed his head near the opening in the flaps. It seemed like something had burned inside, like gunpowder or fireworks. He reeled back quickly from the flap to gain a better angle and examined the roof of the tent. The roof bore no large ventilation openings. In spite of the lack of ventilation and the strength of the odor, there seemed to be no smoke anywhere. Even a large amount of smokeless gunpowder would leave fumes of some kind, Ryuzaki figured, becoming increasingly suspicious. He decided to enter and investigate.

As he reached for the flaps, he heard Light's voice behind him. "Ryuzaki! There you are!"

Evidently, Matsuda had been unable to delay him. He turned around to see the tightly angry face of Light Yagami and the fearful and apologetic face of Touta Matsuda, as the two of them approached, with the shinigami flying behind them.

"What on earth are you doing here?" Light demanded to know. "What about the fortune teller?"

"That's not important right now, Yagami-kun," said Ryuzaki, totally evading the questioning.

"What do you mean not important?"

"Yagami-kun, take a look inside this tent," Ryuzaki ordered, parting the flap. "Note the scent."

Displeased but noticing the alarm on Ryuzaki's face and in his tone, Light humored Ryuzaki and looked inside. "It's dark," he said. "I can't see much but another set of flaps, probably into the auditorium. It seems like gunpowder. They must have set off pyrotechnics."

Just as Ryuzaki had, Light took several steps back and looked at the top of the tent. His eyes widened, and the anger against Ryuzaki vanished and was superseded by tense suspicion. "There's no ventilation. How is that possible?" he said sternly. "They couldn't set off enough explosives to make an odor that strong without ventilation. Ryuzaki, something is going on."

"Your deductions are identical to mine," Ryuzaki said quickly.

Matsuda scratched the back of his head. "How do you guys do this?"

Softly from the exit flaps, the trio of investigators heard a muffled staccato of screams, erupting from inside the show tent auditorium. The screams quickly died out, as if cut short. Light started for the tent flaps, his face distressed. Before he could get inside the tent, however, Ryuzaki moved in front of him and took hold of his shoulders.

"Wait, Yagami-kun," he warned. "We don't know what's going on."

"Ryuzaki," began Light, halting his dash for the tent but tightening his fists, "my sister is in there. I ran into her on the way back from getting your ice cream. She said she was going to the magic show."

Tentatively and concernedly, Ryuzaki looked over his shoulder at the tent. If his deductions were correct, Ami Mizuno was trapped inside that tent as well, likely held against her will if not injured. If he were only a bit more impulsive, he might have charged into the tent alongside Light. "I understand, Yagami-kun, but that is all the more reason to be careful," he said, his voice tensing but remaining steady. "We have no idea what is inside, except that it probably involves large amounts of pyrotechnics. And except for Matsuda, we are unarmed."

"That's not entirely true, Ryuzaki." Light lowered his head, looking at his shoes for a moment before locking eyes with Ryuzaki. "We also have the notebook."

* * *

Under different circumstances, the five girls might have thought it a terrible obstacle for it to be pitch black in the dank dungeon into which they had been dropped. The fall had been over ten feet, and they landed on what felt like damp wood planks. Several of the people had probably been injured by the fall, but it was impossible to see. The only opportunity to see what was in this dark room was a second opening of the trap hatches above them, but all observations were interrupted as more people fell from audience seats in the auditorium above into the dungeon. Amid the yelping and yelling, many of the falling victims must have collided with several who were already on the moist floor.

The clamor made by the other members of the audience who had been dropped in with them and the darkness, however, gave the girls the perfect cover under which to covertly transform into Sailor Senshi. Holding out their transformation rods and brooch, they spoke their command words and together assumed their magical forms with a brief multicolored flash of light.

Unfortunately, after transforming, it was still darker than night. The five girls huddled, holding each other's shoulders not to lose track of the group. Only Sailor Mercury , activating the visor of her supercomputer, was able to see. Gazing through the Mercury Visor's light amplification, she was able to see that most of the other people had not bothered to stand up and several were injured and lying on the wooden floor, struggling to find help.

"Several people are hurt," Mercury quietly reported to her friends. "The ceiling looks like it's made of sheets of metal and wood planks. I can see the hinges and the machinery that controls the hatches!"

"I'm scared," admitted Sailor Moon, her voice quavering in the dark.

"How thick is the trap door, Mercury?" asked Sailor Jupiter, her voice resolute.

Mercury typed into her supercomputer, making calculations. "Eleven centimeters."

"All right. That's good," replied Jupiter, satisfied with the answer. She stood up from the group's collective crouch, and the hands of Sailor Mars and Sailor Venus slid off her shoulders. The team was momentarily confused by Jupiter's words until they heard her shout:

"Sparkling Wide Pressure!"

With a bright flash, a bolt of electrical energy flew from Jupiter's hand upward toward the ceiling, its glow illuminating part of the dungeon. The trap hatches, not heavily reinforced, blew apart at the impact of the attack, and a gaping hole formed in the ceiling of the dungeon. Light from above poured into the room. Taking advantage of the opening Jupiter had created, the five Sailor Senshi nodded to each other, and in a single bound, they leapt out of the hole into the auditorium. Emerging out of the dark hole and into the light of the auditorium, they landed between the seats around the stage and quickly searched for their foe.

Standing on the stage in the center of the auditorium with a shocked expression, stood the magician. The Senshi each stood poised to fight as they stared down their enemy, whom they had nearly surrounded.

"You're going to pay for what you've done to all these people trying to enjoy a magic show!" exclaimed Sailor Venus.

"I don't know who you are or what you want, but I will not tolerate you hurting innocent people!" shouted Sailor Mars.

"We won't forgive you for making trouble in a place of fun!" decreed Sailor Moon, aiming an accusing finger at the red-haired magician. "For love and justice…"

"…we are the Sailor Team!" announced all five girls in unison.

"And in the name of the moon…," began Sailor Moon.

"…we will punish you!" the team chimed in, all pointing fingers at the magician.

The face of the red-haired man on stage had shifted from that of appalled surprise to that of smug satisfaction. A sharp grin formed across his face, and he began to chuckle. "I hoped that you would come, Sailor Senshi," the man called out, holding back elation, "but I didn't realize it would be so soon! This could not have gone better!" He stabbed a finger toward Sailor Moon. "At last, I can take my revenge on you, Sailor Moon!"

"Revenge?" repeated Sailor Moon, confused. "We don't even know who you are!" she spat indignantly.

"Ah, of course," replied the magician, chuckling again. "This body is different from my old one, even if I've tried to add my own touches." He brushed his fingers through his dyed red hair. "But my spirit is the same, Sailor Senshi, and I am sure you will remember your old enemy, Crimson Rubeus!"

The five Senshi gasped in shock at the name of the foe they had vanquished two years ago.

"Crimson Rubeus!" shouted Sailor Moon in disbelief. "That's impossible! You were killed!"

The violet eyes of Sailor Mars widened in realization. "That crystal around your neck!" she exclaimed.

"A shard of the Black Crystal," Rubeus explained, nodding and taking the tiny crystal in his hand. "I was wearing this on my ear when I was killed. The explosion that killed me hurled the earring onto the Earth, and years later, this magician picked it up from the ground – by pure chance – and awakened my spirit, lying dormant inside." Releasing the crystal and letting it rest against his chest, he leaned back into a fighting posture. "This is quite enough talk, I think. I want revenge for what you did to the Black Moon Clan and what you did to me!"

The reincarnated Crimson Rubeus leapt into the air, levitating over the stage of the show tent. His fists glowed and were wreathed in flame.

"Have at you, Sailor Senshi!"

* * *

From a narrow parting in the tent flaps leading into the small exit foyer, Light, Ryuzaki, and Matsuda all peeked into the auditorium. Light crouched on one side of the flaps; Ryuzaki squatted on the other side, with Matsuda standing over him with his revolver drawn in his hand. The young police detective's mouth hung open in amazement. Light's brow has arched at a high angle, unsure of what he watched. Ryuzaki's face held a rare expression of shock. Even the shinigami Rem peeked into the room and was surprised at what she saw.

"What the hell…?" breathed Light in utter exasperation.

"These must be the vigilantes in sailor fukus on which the news is so fond of reporting," Ryuzaki observed, struggling to contain his own surprise as he watched the five girls and the red-haired man fight, as they hurled brightly colored energy at each other and shouted cryptic English words.

"It's like- like watching a sentai anime," Matsuda said, his face quivering between expressions of total confusion and blissful humor. "Or a magical girl anime."

Both Light and Ryuzaki took their eyes off the battle action ensuing in the auditorium of the large tent to stare at Matsuda incredulous at his remarks.

"Uh… right, Ryuzaki, Light-kun, what should we do?"

Ryuzaki looked again through the part in the tent flaps at the fight. His eyes narrowed as he assessed the situation. "For now, we wait," he said. "The revolver and the killing notebook seem totally useless right now."

* * *

Crimson Rubeus had lost none of his power from years of dormancy, but the Sailor Senshi had gained tremendous strength since their encounters with him so long ago. Not expecting such strong attacks from them, he was forced onto the defensive in the face of fierce bolts of lighting from Jupiter and bright golden energy from Venus. His chief advantage over them being his ability to levitate, he darted through the air to evade their attacks and spewed streams of fire from his hands at the floor of the show tent, lighting one side of the room ablaze, both to impede their movements and create a dangerous diversion. The fabric of the seats ignited quickly and brightly, and the planks of the floor blackened and splintered under the jets of flame. The canvas walls, even though they were coated with flame retardant chemicals, could not resist the intense heat and began to melt and go afire.

"Mercury!" shouted Venus, fleeing the spreading fire on one side of the stage with a long leap to the back of the tent. "Douse the flames!"

Acknowledging, Sailor Mercury leapt onto the stage in the center of the room to gain a clear line of sight of the growing fire. "Shine Aqua Illusion!" she shouted, directing an emerging stream of water from her hands over the fire. The broad flow of water made swift work of the blaze, reducing it to smoking, but thoroughly doused, black ash. The seats and floor, now wet and blackened, sizzled and hissed loudly through the battle.

As Mercury extinguished the flames, Jupiter and Mars moved onto the offensive. The Senshi in green cast another bolt of lightning at Rubeus, forcing him to dive toward the ground to evade the attack, landing between two rows of seating. The evaded attack continued upward, tearing raggedly through the ceiling of the tent, exposing the starry night sky.

Having him pinned now in the obstructed ground of the auditorium seating, from her position on the stage, Mars held out her hand toward Rubeus, manifesting a bow composed of flame in her hand. With a hand movement as if nocking an arrow, she called out, "Mars Flame Sniper!" and a plume of flame jetted toward Rubeus. The red-haired man countered the attack, manifesting his own stream of fire from his hands, cackling at the challenge. Rubeus's geyser of flames absorbed the attack of Sailor Mars, and the inferno in the air swelled, reddening the room, singeing the stage and the seating, and heating the area hotter than a desert under the sun.

After the flames had subsided in the air, rising from her cover behind seats in the rear of the tent, Sailor Moon cried out, "Everyone, please, don't hurt him! He may be Rubeus, but his body is human!"

"Damn it. She's right," conceded Jupiter, leaping in calculated retreat onto the stage between Mars and Mercury.

Summoning the Eternal Tiare to her hands, Sailor Moon looked to Venus, who had fallen back behind the last row of seats with her. They nodded to each other, tacitly acknowledging their plan to attack Rubeus.

By now, however, each of the girls was sweating profusely. The heat in the tent, even while there were no open flames burning, was intense. Though Mercury had extinguished the large fire eating one side of the tent, the smoldering charcoal remains of that part of the auditorium continued to spew hot and thick smoke into the air. As they waited for Rubeus to make a move, Mars and Jupiter struggled to remain alert while fighting to breathe the thick air. Reeling away from the heat of the extinguished ash, Sailor Mercury produced her compact supercomputer to measure the temperature.

"Everyone, the temperature fifty-three degrees Celsius in here!" she called out, panting, reading the screen of her computer. "We need to do something quickly; otherwise we'll get hyperthermia!"

"Hyper-what?" shouted Venus, who along with Sailor Moon was heaving breaths as she moved toward Rubeus from around the last row of seats.

"It means we're going to be baked alive," Mercury urgently clarified, "along with the people in the hole!"

The red-haired magician seemed to be the only one in the tent not suffering from the extreme heat. He had begun to levitate once again, floating over the seats. From his position in the air, he gazed through the smoke at Sailor Moon, who was running through the heat just behind Sailor Venus. The two of them seemed to be moving into position to attack him, and Sailor Moon carried a short staff he had not seen before. Concerned that Sailor Moon had grown substantially in power as the others had and that her new powers may have been too great for him to counter, Rubeus thrust his hands toward the floor directly in front of Sailor Venus. A jet of flames spattered from the hands of Rubeus onto the wooden planks in front of Venus, forcing her to stop short on her heels to avoid running straight into the high-reaching flames. Sailor Moon, unable to stop running in time, collided with Venus, nearly sending the two of them toppling forward into the flames.

The other girls snapped into action.

Mercury moved to assist Sailor Moon and Sailor Venus. Stifled by the heat, Mercury struggled to shout, "_Sabão _Spray Freezing!" She directed her hands toward the flames impeding her two friends, and a stream of water bubbles leapt through the air, colliding with the floor and canvas wall of the tent and freezing it over with a sheet of glimmering ice. In only a few seconds, however, the ice had melted into a steaming liquid. Sailor Venus and Sailor Moon were safe from the flames as they regained their balance from their short stop.

Jupiter and Mars moved against Rubeus, Jupiter hurling a ball of lightning at him and Mars letting loose another arrow of flame. Both attacks inbound for the red-haired magician, he hastened to flick his hand and raise a wall of flame from the floor to the ceiling between him and the two Senshi. The bolts of lightning and fire collided with the wall and burst in blinding and hot flashes, leaving the tent even hotter than before and leaving Rubeus unharmed.

Mercury could feel the sweat running hotly down her face. Her mouth felt dry. She eyed the screen of her supercomputer again, seeing that the temperature had risen to fifty-six degrees Celsius. "We have to do something to lower the temperature!" she cried against the heat. "Jupiter, blow holes in the roof!"

Jupiter would have acknowledged Mercury if her head were not so light and fuzzy from the intensity of the heat. She instead simply followed Mercury's instructions and threw several bolts of lightning upward, tearing jagged rips into the ceiling of the tent. The torn edges of the openings she made immediately began to flap in the ensuing ventilation: the hot air from the tent quickly blew out into the cooler night air of the outside. The tent became noticeably cooler, though the relief was only marginal; it was still over fifty degrees.

As Jupiter ventilated the air, Mercury, who had dropped to her knees on the stage under the heat, rasped, "_Sabão _Spray!" The tent was filled with water bubbles bursting from Mercury's raised hands. The many of the water bubbles warmed and diffused into steam. Not only did the bubbles cool the tent by several degrees, but they obscured the visibility. Through the fog of the effects of the _Sabão _Spray, Mercury could hear several audible sighs of relief from her friends, grateful for the water against their skin and for the cooler air.

Rubeus, who had been glaring at Sailor Venus and Sailor Moon before the fog had filled the tent, was infuriated that he had lost sight of his targets. He swept his arms through the bubbles and steam in front of him, searching for the Sailor Senshi. In his blindness, he nearly stumbled into some of the seats he had burned. "Dammit! Where are you!" he yelled into the clouds.

"Right here!" called out the refreshed voice of Sailor Mars, standing boldly on the stage in the center of the room. In a cocky posture, with her hands on her hips, she smirked at Rubeus through the fog.

Through the parting clouds, Rubeus saw her and threw a hand out toward her, casting a plume of fire in her direction. The flames incised the fog, cutting a swath of clarity from where he stood toward the stage. When the bolt of fire dissipated, Sailor Mars was nowhere to be seen, having leapt out of the way, into the fog. Enraged that he had missed, Rubeus screamed in frustration; the fog was such a simple trick, and it had foiled him – at least for the moment.

"Venus Love-Me Chain!"

Blinded in his momentary rage, he did not see the golden chain of Sailor Venus emerging from the clouds behind him whipping around his arms and chest, binding him where he stood. He struggled against the chain, but it was wound too tightly around him for him to escape.

Out of the fog, Sailor Moon leapt onto the stage for Rubeus to see her in front of him. "Rubeus, I know you're still angry after all these years, but I will not allow you to hurt people! And I will not allow you to use the body of an innocent magician so you can try to take your revenge!" She lifted the Eternal Tiare and aimed it toward Rubeus. Brandishing the magical staff, she cried out, "Silver Moon Crystal Power Kiss!"

Brilliant rays of golden light were shed from Sailor Moon's staff, and Rubeus was enveloped in its brightness. Hurling his head backward in the light and falling to his knees, he let out a shrill cry, tortured by the energy. With Venus's chain still enwrapping him, he remained immobile while he squirmed and screamed. Finally, the light subsided, and the red-haired magician slumped on his knees while still bound by the golden chain, with his head hanging near his chest, silent. The glow of the crystal around his neck had dimmed; now it hung dully, like a hunk of coal. Sailor Moon breathed a sad sigh of relief and lowered the Eternal Tiare.

"It's over," she said quietly through the fog, as Jupiter, Mercury, and Mars appeared at her sides. The three girls nodded to Sailor Moon. Venus remained behind the seating below the stage, and she gave a pleasant wink to Sailor Moon to acknowledge the victory.

As Venus began to loosen the grip of the chain on the red-haired man, she saw his head suddenly snap back upright, his eyes filled with scorn and rage. The black crystal around his neck shone again.

"It's not over yet!" he erupted, standing up suddenly and fiercely. As he screamed maniacally, he flexed against the chain, and from every part of his body, waves of fire tore through the air. The spiraling fire filled the auditorium, reducing Mercury's fog to thin steam. The girls hurled themselves to the wooden floor to avoid being struck by the wild fire spewing through the air like confetti. The flames melted the golden chain around Rubeus's body into slag. When the fire had finally ceased bursting from the body of Crimson Rubeus, much of the furniture of the tent had been lit on fire and several parts of the floor were burning.

"That won't be enough to stop me, Sailor Moon!" he called out. "It will take more than that to purge me from this body!"

Quickly turning to Rubeus, Mercury touched her earring to activate the Mercury Visor, and the translucent blue device appeared over her eyes. Punching buttons on her supercomputer rapidly, she analyzed the radiating energy around the red-haired man's body. "The Black Crystal!" she shouted, rising to her feet from where she had dove for cover against the spiraling flames. "Get the Crystal away from him! It's too powerful to be destroyed with an attack, so we'll have to take it from him!"

"Right!" agreed Venus, who had already shuffled to her feet.

While the other girls struggled to regain their bearings, Venus and Mercury moved against Rubeus, charging at him through the destroyed auditorium seating with the hope they would be able to get close enough to wrest the Black Crystal shard from him. By the time Venus and Mercury came within reach of Rubeus, however, he had leapt into the air and begun levitating again, this time moving straight for Sailor Moon. He flew toward her, full of monomaniacal rage, while she was still on her hands and knees on the singed wooden stage.

After Sailor Moon's attack had suppressed the power of the Black Crystal, Rubeus had realized by now that he was outmatched. Even if they were reluctant to kill him in this body, he knew he could not last much longer against all five of them. Eventually, they would either incapacitate his body in desperation or manage to tear the Crystal off him. In the time his spirit had remained dormant in the Crystal, they had grown too strong to defeat, so Rubeus decided he would be content as long as he was able to kill Sailor Moon and take revenge for his defeat. She was the one responsible for his downfall and for the downfall of his clan.

An inexorable solitude had grown in him, a sense that he was more than temporarily alone; he was in total isolation. Those years ago, he had treated his subordinates as expendable resources, and it was only as he died that he realized that he, too, was expendable. Before then, however, before his death, there was a feeling of being powerful and of being entrenched in the purpose of taking revenge on the people of the White Moon. There was a teleology then, for which he was now nostalgic, now desperate, but knowing that the time of the Black Moon Clan had long passed, knowing all his comrades were long dead, knowing he was inescapably alone, his despair had become rage – indelible, myopic rage.

He dove through the air at Sailor Moon with no regard for what would happen after he struck.

"Rubeus, please stop!" yelled Sailor Moon, still on her knees in the line of his flight. "The Black Moon Clan was manipulated by the Death Phantom when we fought you! I understand that you just wanted a place for your people, and you were angry at us – but this has to stop!" Her voice broke under her sorrow and sympathy.

Unmoved by the tears in the blue eyes of Sailor Moon, Rubeus flew directly into her, tackling her against the broken planks of the stage. She let out a wail of pain as they collided with the wood. Straddling her, he lifted himself up and pulled back his fist to strike her face, wet with tears. Through the water of her tears, Sailor Moon could see the maniacal face of Rubeus, immersed in his anger; his eyes, too, were tearful, though not in sympathy but in the hysterics of rage. His fist became wreathed in flames as he pulled it back over his shoulder.

"It's your fault that we lost!" he screamed, infuriated. "It's your fault!"

His fist fell like an ax at her as she cowered.

Just before the blow could make contact with Sailor Moon, however, his wrist was enwrapped in a golden chain, held by Sailor Venus. The force of the chain held back his attack just short of her face. Then, with a sudden and ferocious pull punctuated with a roar from the mouth of Venus, the chain tightened and launched the red-haired man backward, off Sailor Moon, off the stage, over the smoldering seating, over the hole leading into the dungeon. Unable to break his fall, Rubeus slammed into the hard floor of the other side of the auditorium, sliding toward the exit flaps. He lay on the floor, stunned and disoriented by the impact. The planks under his impact had splintered and crunched; he lay in a crater of broken wood and dust.

"Now! Go for the necklace!" ordered an urgent voice from the other side of the tent wall.

Emerging from the exit flaps with haphazard coordination, three young men sprang out and lunged at the floored Rubeus. Two of the men grabbed hold of each of Rubeus's arms, and the third tackled the red-haired man's torso, wrestling to take hold of the crystal around his neck. Seeing this chaotic tussle, the five Senshi leapt off the stage and began running toward Rubeus and his assailants. After a brief struggle, one of the young men holding Rubeus's arm was hurled against the taut canvas wall of the tent. Then a strangled scream burst from the mouth of Rubeus, and then he was suddenly silenced, as the two remaining men rolled off him. The red-haired magician lay motionless in the crater of shattered boards.

"I got it!" cried one of the men joyfully. "I got the necklace." The man, who wore a dark blue jacket, stood in disheveled glory, holding up the shard of the Black Crystal by its chain.

The Senshi gazed in bemusement that these men had come out of nowhere, had known exactly what to do, and managed to wrestle the Black Crystal free from around the magician's neck. The three of them were disheveled and sweat-stained. Seeing the state of their skin and clothes, Mercury figured they must have been waiting in the tent, probably in the exit foyer, waiting for the opportunity to strike. Whoever they were, they were courageous to have intervened.

"Good work, Matsui-san," flatly said another one of the men, who wore a plain white t-shirt and jeans and stood in a slouch. "Asahi-san," he began, looking toward the other man, "check the hole."

The last man, after dusting himself off from having been tossed away from Rubeus in the brawl, made a blind dash toward the hole in the ground, passing by the five girls in sailor fukus, who stood in shock around the remains of the battle. Rubeus – or at least, the body of the magician possessed by Crimson Rubeus – lay unmoving but breathing on the splintered wooden floor. Venus stooped down to inspect the man's body.

"He seems to be all right – mostly," she said.

"Thank you so much!" cried Sailor Moon, folding her hands in front of her chest in gratitude to the young men who burst in. After a moment of blind and tearful gratitude, her eyes ran over to the awkwardly slouching young man, recognizing him.

Jupiter, Mars, and Mercury eyed the young man as well, all remembering him from the café: the young man who had ordered the uncommonly large amount of sweets and sat strangely in his seat – and in Mercury's case, the man who had caught her beret and replaced it on her head. The two men stood opposite the Senshi silently and awkwardly.

"Who are you?" asked Mars sharply.

The awkward man said nothing, but the man in the blue jacket pulled out a police badge from his pants pocket. "Japanese National Police Agency, Taro Matsui." He placed the badge back in his pocket.

"Were you waiting in the exit foyer?" asked Mercury.

"Huh? Oh, yeah, that's right," answered the man who had identified himself as Matsui.

"Matsui-san, give them the necklace," instructed the awkward man. His tired-looking eyes had not lifted from the girls since he had stood up from wrestling with the magician.

"Oh, right. Sure."

Matsui held out the necklace toward the girls, and Sailor Moon took it in her hand studying it carefully. The small black jewel still bore a bright luster, and Sailor Moon could feel its dark energy in her hand. Knowing that the spirit of Crimson Rubeus dwelt in this small gem, she was overtaken by sorrow and sympathy for all the pain and anger he must have felt. Tears again began welling up in her eyes, despite knowing that she felt sorry for a man who had tried to kill her daughter. She could feel no hatred toward him, only pity that he had suffered so much to want to take revenge.

"Ryuga, there are people trapped in room below, just as we thought," the young man called from the edge of the hole. He had stooped by the shorn edge of the hole and was gazing into it, down at the crowded and huddled hostages, freed from Rubeus but not extricated from the hole.

He wanted badly to call out for Sayu, to know that she was all right, but he knew that because the Sailor Senshi were in earshot – as well as all the other people down the hole – it was a bad idea to reveal his identity. He stood up and returned to Ryuga and Matsui. The five Sailor Senshi, Ryuga, and Matsui were looking at each other awkwardly, no one knowing quite what to say – or not caring to say anything. As Asahi rejoined the group, they could hear approaching police sirens.

"Good, the police will be here soon," said Matsui. "We called them before we moved in."

"We'd better go, Sailor Moon," said Sailor Mercury. The other Senshi nodded in agreement. Sailor Moon took a brief moment, still looking at the Black Crystal shard, and then she nodded.

"The police will take care of the people down in the hole, of course," Mercury said looking to Matsui for confirmation.

"Oh, of course," he assured her. "We'll take it from here."

The Senshi swiftly moved for the exit, Sailor Moon still holding the Crystal shard in her hand. As the five soldiers departed, Sailor Mercury took another glancing look at the young man in the white t-shirt, who seemed to be absentmindedly scratching his calf with his foot and gazing vacuously at the Senshi as they left. Mercury longed to stay and ask who the young man was, but she knew she could not linger any longer. Her yearning curiosity chewed at her more than the thoughts of the battle they had just fought, as the five girls sprinted out of the carnival lot and searched for a place to return to their civilian forms out of sight.

* * *

Ryuzaki and Light made sure to remain out of way of the police, medical personnel, and the civilian victims as local police took over the scene and began rescue operations to free the people from the underground dungeon beneath the show tent. Because they had called task force headquarters instead of calling the local police directly, Soichiro Yagami and Aizawa had arrived as well and were overseeing the scene. Upon hearing about the battle, Soichiro Yagami had seemed incredulous, but he commended Matsuda on his stellar performance under pressure. Matsuda proudly accepted the praise.

Through Detective Superintendent Yagami, Ryuzaki had requested that the victims be counted each of the victims' identities ascertained. He asked also that the number of victims be cross-checked with the reports by carnival workers of how many people were admitted into each of the last two shows. Ryuzaki requested that this information be sent to task force headquarters.

It took several hours to extricate all of the victims from the hole, and each of them was provided medical attention on the spot. Thankfully, not a single person was killed, though several sustained severe injuries. Ryuzaki, Matsuda, and Light remained on the scene until Sayu Yagami had been rescued from the hole, having broken her leg in the fall from the auditorium into the dungeon.

Hearing that Sayu was to be sent to the nearest hospital, Light wanted to ride in the ambulance with her so that she would not be alone, but he knew it was more important that he remain near the notebook and ensure that it was not evident that Rem was following him. Indeed, it was becoming increasingly problematic to have possession of the Death Note while the task force could see Rem. His father, however, volunteered to travel with her to the hospital, so Light took comfort in knowing that.

As the police began to move away from the scene, the rescue operations having been completed, Ryuzaki walked away from the members of the task force, who were now making their way back to headquarters, to make a phone call.

"Yes, Ryuzaki?" he heard the voice of Watari over the line.

"Has the information regarding the incident at the carnival been sent to headquarters yet, Watari?" Ryuzaki asked.

"Yes, it has," answered Watari.

"Were all of the victims accounted for?"

"All but five people who entered the shows."

"I see," said Ryuzaki. "Please check the list of the victims for the following names: Usagi Tsukino, Minako Aino, Makoto Kino, Rei Hino, and Ami Mizuno."

After a pause, Watari responded, "None of those names appear on the list, Ryuzaki."

"I see. Can you please track a cell phone signal for me, Watari?"

"Of course, Ryuzaki."

After reciting a phone number from memory, Watari informed Ryuzaki of the location the phone. Ryuzaki thanked Watari and told him to inform the task force that he would return to headquarters later. He then retrieved a bus pass from his pocket and started toward the nearest stop walking away from the empty carnival into the night streets.


	6. Who Is the Mysterious Young Man?

Who Is the Mysterious Young Man? Ryuzaki Appears Again

The Minato Ward Sports Center was open even at this late hour, and instead of remaining with her friends for the night, Ami decided to take a solitary swim tonight, knowing that the pool was almost always empty at this time of night. As she had hoped, the pool was indeed empty except for her. The indoor pool was lit with bright ceiling lights, which made the darkness of the night outside the tall plate glass windows particularly stark. Quietly, she guided her bare feet across the cement floor toward the pool, placing the towel and the book she carried with her on a poolside lounge chair.

She sat at the edge of the pool, letting her legs dangle in the water. The day had been exhausting, and though she treasured time with her friends, she wanted very much to spend some time alone in her thoughts. She lowered herself into the water and began a leisurely swim under the surface. Feeling the warm pressure of water around her, she felt her body relax, in perfect solitude. Though she was, for the time, away from all her worries, her thoughts rebounded back to the battle they had fought against the reincarnated Rubeus and the list of victims of Kira. She rose toward the surface of the water, feeling lonely. Like the feeling of wanting to surface from the water but not wanting to leave the pool, she felt a mild longing for her friends though concurrently vaguely wanted to be alone and remote of any immediate concerns. Her head and shoulders emerged from the water, and her mouth opened widely to fill her lungs with air.

Usagi had been reluctant to destroy the shard of the Black Crystal, knowing that it contained the spirit of Rubeus. It didn't feel right, she said, to destroy someone who had been hurt so badly that he wanted to do nothing but take revenge on those who he thought had hurt him. Even after Rei's arguing that it was impossible for Rubeus to have returned and been whole, that he had no home, no family, and no friends; he had only his rage left, and that was the only emotion motivating him after two years – Usagi still refused to destroy the Crystal. They had taken it with them to Hikawa Shrine to hide it.

How much suffering, Ami wondered, did it take to reduce someone to want nothing but to destroy what he hated?

She thought of the list of victims of Kira; each time she thought of that list, systematic and solemn, it felt as if she stood alone in a cemetery, surrounded by the dead. She wondered how much suffering was required to motivate a person to want so badly to see justice done that they would kill so many people. Floating on her back, she looked up at the ceiling of the indoor pool. Sad, she turned over onto her stomach and crawled slowly through the water.

* * *

Standing outside on the corner of the street, through the glass of the front door to the Sports Center, Ryuzaki could see a young woman sitting behind the reception desk in the lobby. She looked weary and bored, leaning on a fist and paging drowsily through a small book. Walking past the entrance to the building, he quickly studied the layout of the lobby, taking especial note of the ID card scanning pad on the wall beside the closed door that led to the locker rooms, weight rooms, and other sport and exercise facilities. The building comprised six floors, he could see, but he supposed there might be a basement for storage. From the outside, he could see that the sixth floor – the uppermost floor – was lit. The slouching detective considered the late hour and the certainty that Ami Mizuno was inside the Sports Center; it was unlikely that many more people were inside the building if any were there at all, and given Ami Mizuno's propensity for swimming – as he recalled from viewing her numerous swimming records while researching her – it was likely that the topmost floor held a swimming pool and that Mizuno was there.

Pressing a thumb against his lips, he rapidly assembled a plan. Amid his whirling and whirring instrumental considerations of methods by which he could enter the building and the sorts of security the Sports Center was likely to possess, Ryuzaki engaged in the silent and sporadic mental gymnastics of justifying what he was about to do. More than once he caught himself imagining Ami Mizuno bright face refracted in clean and gently flowing pool water, and briefly, he imagined that seeing her would be the prize for solving this puzzle of how to infiltrate the building. Instantly, however, he pushed this thought aside and remembered that he had tasked himself with an important duty only he could perform. Focusing on the practical issue at hand, he suppressed the welling excitement he felt about seeing Mizuno in person once again.

For nearly an entire day before this time, he had been able to watch her clearly on camera through the computer he had given her. Typically, for the purposes of a case, seeing a subordinate through a camera or sometimes only communicating with him or her through a phone was sufficient. Rarely was there a need to meet someone face-to-face, even while working with him or her, and when he did – at least until the Kira case – he never revealed his identity as L. Indeed, until the Kira case, even those with whom he worked regularly, with the exception of Watari, had never seen his face. Now in spite of all precedent, Ryuzaki felt the urgent need to do this himself, in the flesh. Perhaps out of some childish desire for authenticity, he felt that to send a proxy in his stead would be ersatz, and for reasons he at this time refused to explain, he intuitively felt that Mizuno deserved more than the usual routine. She was, he vaguely justified, too good for that.

Rumbling from streets in the distance, a motorcycle pulled up to the curb up the block. Ryuzaki ambled to meet the rider, a woman dressed in a leather jacket and pants with her face concealed under a helmet. As the sloppy-looking young man approached, she tipped the visor of the helmet to reveal her face.

"I brought what you asked, Ryuzaki," she said in English, without a greeting. With quick gestures, she opened a pouch mounted on the side of the bike and handed him a bulging manila envelope. From her back, she slung off a backpack with a handle of a tennis racket protruding from its partly closed zipper.

After tearing open the mouth of the parcel, Ryuzaki briefly examined the contents. "Good. Thank you, Wedy," he said dully, not taking his eyes from the items in the envelope. "I have another request. You will need my tennis bag." He lifted the satchel containing the racket back toward her.

* * *

As she pulled open the glass door of Sports Center, Wedy was not pleased. She did not resent working for Ryuzaki; he paid her abundantly well, ensured that the police did not harass her, and made her life quite comfortable. Occasionally, however, there came tasks that she performed begrudgingly, whether they were highly tedious or – as was the case this time – so stupidly easy, given her skills, that she felt they were beneath her. Moreover, she couldn't imagine how this task was at all germane to the Kira investigation. Holding back a sigh, she waved a glowing smartphone in her hand over the RFID scanner beside the Sports Center's door, being sure that the sleepy receptionist's view of the phone was blocked by her hip. The scanner chirped and a small green light on its panel glowed to indicate the glass door was now open. She smoothly moved through the door and into the corridor beyond, tucking the phone into her pocket as she did.

Stopping in front of the several sets of elevator doors in the small lobby near the end of the corridor, she pulled off the sunglasses she had been wearing, even outside in the dark of the night, and examined the directory and basic floor plan that was screwed to the wall there. She snapped a photo of the directory and layout with her phone's camera. She summoned an elevator with the push of a button, and once inside the elevator car, she made certain there were no security cameras before phoning Ryuzaki.

"It's just like you said," Wedy explained. "There are two pools. Both of them are on the top floor. There's a set of locker rooms there too. I'm sending you a photo of a basic floor plan."

"Good," dryly answered Ryuzaki over her phone's speaker. "For now, go to the sixth floor and identify which pool Miss Mizuno is using and verify that there is no one else in the area."

"Fine," she said, stifling her resentment of the ease of this task. "Security is awful here, not that there's much to protect. The RFID cracker worked in less than a second, so you'll have no trouble getting inside. And there are no security cameras either." No longer caring to hide how she felt about the task, she added, "I thought bugging the Yotsuba Group was easy; this is easier than a cakewalk. There's absolutely nothing here that could stop us. And what the hell is this about anyway?"

"Be patient, Wedy. Everything will be clear in due time."

* * *

Her eyes shut and her face in the water, Ami thought of Usagi shouting in the battle against Rubeus not to hurt him, that it was more important to save a life than to destroy a villain. The simple knowledge that such unconditional caring existed, that Usagi was her friend, that her friends would be there to support her no matter what trial they faced – knowing these things gave her solace enough to bring a smile to her face as she swam.

But stopping to float again, she thought of that list of victims once more. Intrusively, the memory of the list appearing on her computer screen reemerged in her mind. Grimly, she recalled the grave sight of each name meticulously documented with a cause of death. Thinking of all the evil done already and all the evil that would be done, she felt more intensely than ever before that she wanted to help L catch Kira. She was unsure if Kira was evil or whether it was the power to kill that was evil, but she felt that if she helped L, maybe it was possible not only to save the lives of more victims, but also save Kira himself from whatever hunger made him do what he did. Whipping her legs in an easy backstroke, she knew that saving Kira himself was probably an unrealistic dream, but she had to hope. If there was no hope, there was no sense in trying to catch him. Her hope unwound the tight knot that had developed in her stomach thinking of Kira's victims.

Now relaxed, her thoughts moved to L himself, and she wondered why he was so bent on capturing Kira. News reports of L's activities never elaborated on his identity; nothing was known about him, not a name, not a face, only that he possessed an exceptional mind. She wondered what kind of man L was, and this wondering soon drifted into a whimsical vague hoping, and she remembered again what L had said about her poetry. She did have this detail that no one else knew: L had a careful eye for poetic language and an appreciation for beauty. This humanizing detail softened the way she imagined L, made the memory of the Old English letter L on her computer screen less daunting, though no less inscrutable.

It seemed odd to her that the detective would have discovered a new potential investigator through a writing website. His first contact with her had, in fact, been unrelated to the investigation, unless it had all been part of an elaborate scheme to test her abilities. Though she was admittedly unsure whether she genuinely disbelieved it or whether she was merely hoping, she could not opine that in the beginning L was scouting her as a potential investigator. She wanted to believe that he simply liked her poetry and wanted to play chess. Blushing slightly at the thought, Ami dove under the water again.

* * *

The corridors of the sixth floor were empty, as Wedy reported, and Ryuzaki calmly ambled toward the women's locker room. The absence of other people allowed him to enter the room unimpeded; if anyone else were inside, a staccato of screams and thrown objects would likely have driven him out of the room in a matter of seconds. Fortunately for him, he was able to pace up and down the aisles of lockers and changing benches unscrutinized. The place smelled of chlorine from the pool in the room down a short adjoining hall. In the quiet of the locker room, but for Ryuzaki's light footsteps, the only sound was the intermittent splashing of water from the pool, where Ami Mizuno swam. As he reached the end of an aisle of lockers, Ryuzaki hesitated and considered stealing a look at her in the pool before proceeding, but he checked himself and continued his search.

Finally, after weaving through four aisles, he came to a locker fixed with a high-quality combination lock. He lifted the lock on its bracket and read the printed serial number on the back. It was a lock generally for use on school lockers, and its serial number corresponded to a publicly available chart of combinations for locksmiths and educational institutions that wished to search the lockers of their students. L freely recalled the numbers on one such chart as he turned the dial to the proper numbers and, with a tug, opened the lock.

Inside the locker, he found Ami Mizuno's belongings: her clothes, a jacket, her shoes, and a small gym bag. Ryuzaki rifled through the pockets of her clothing with his bony fingers, finding her cell phone, a pen, and a watch with an adorned face cover. With the watch dangling awkwardly from his index finger, he examined it for several seconds. There were no markings on the rear plate of the watch, which was curious, even for a custom-made watch. Finished studying it, he replaced it in the pocket of her jacket where he had found it. He then turned his attention to her phone. The touch screen had been locked and demanded a passcode, but he recalled the sequence of gestures Mizuno had used to unlock it; she had once done so while visible on his computer's camera in her room. In a moment, he had access to her recent call history, text messages, reminders, notes, and pictures. He gave the contents of her phone a cursory inspection.

After replacing the phone in her pocket where he had found it, he squatted near the cement floor and unzipped the gym bag to find an athletic outfit, a towel, a peculiar artifact shaped not unlike a guarded rapier hilt with a gem mounted on its top, and a slim electronic device with a light blue cover which he instantly recognized. With a careful grip on the corners of the device, he raised it out of the bag to look at it more closely. He flipped its cover open to reveal a screen, a keypad, and several buttons. It was indeed what he suspected it was: the compact computer he had seen Sailor Mercury use in the battle against the magician at the carnival.

With his hypothesis now confirmed, Ryuzaki placed the device back in the bag, zipped the bag shut, closed the locker, and relocked it. He quickly spun the dial on the combination lock to point at the "10", the number it had pointed to before he had opened the locker. With his hands tucked in his pockets, he walked through the locker room and through the hall to the pool. Though seen by no one, the widening grin on his face betrayed his excitement for his discovery.

* * *

Ami rose and took a deep breath near the cement wall of the pool. With a swift motion, she climbed out of the pool and sat at the edge again, with her legs in the water. Having acclimated to the temperature of the water, her shoulders felt cold now in the open air, so she rubbed her arms with her hands. As she slowly adjusted again to the ambient temperature, she closed her eyes and let out a gentle sigh.

"Mizuno-san?" said a familiar voice close to her ear.

Startled, she gasped and turned to see the face of the awkward young man she had encountered outside the café and again in the carnival after the battle. He was squatting on bare feet only inches away from her, dressed as before in a white t-shirt and jeans. Though surprised by his sudden appearance, she could not wholeheartedly say that she was frightened. Undoubtedly, she was startled, but seeing him again brought memories of bony fingers replacing her hat on her head, and involuntarily, she lifted her hand to touch her wet hair where she had felt his fingertips.

"It's you!" she said, trying to sound polite but sounding startled as well. "I remember you from outside the café."

"You swim beautifully," the young man said.

"Thank you," said Ami. "Excuse me, but how did you find me? Do you come to the Sports Center often?"

"No, this is my first time in the Sports Center," he admitted as he rolled up the cuffs of his jeans to keep them dry around the pool. "You are Ami Mizuno-san, yes?"

"Yes, that's right."

"I work with the police," he explained, half-lying, as he reached into his pocket and produced a Japanese police badge. "We interviewed one of your friends about the incident at the carnival earlier this evening. She informed us you were at the carnival with them, and she mentioned that you might be here." The man scratched at his scalp near the back of his neck.

"Oh, I see," she replied hesitantly. Though Ami felt at ease with the man, who appeared physically unintimidating and had done nothing overtly threatening, she found the explanation for his finding her implausible. The police had not interviewed any of them at the carnival lot, since they had all departed the scene while transformed. Thereafter, the police locating any of them for an interview was nearly impossible. There had been no cameras in the carnival, and no one had taken their names; no one should have been able to track them. The only possibility that jibed with the man's explanation was that a witness had seen them and provided a description of them. Based only on physical descriptions, though, it still should not have been possible to discern their identities. That he was possibly lying was troubling, as Ami had a vital secret to hide, and while she could not at the moment imagine how he might have been able to discover her identity as a Sailor Senshi, even the vaguest chance that he had ascertained her identity was unsettling.

Though with his sloppy appearance he certainly did not look like a police officer, the man carried a police badge, however, and it had looked legitimate. He had also appeared during the battle with Rubeus, along with other members of the police. This both bolstered the man's claim that he was a police officer and made Ami more nervous that he knew or suspected the truth of her identity, since he had been so close to her as she acted as Sailor Mercury. If he had wanted to hurt her, however, he likely would have tried to have done so already. He had little reason to lie to her, as far as she could tell, but she silently resolved to test the limits of his explanation, to err on the side of safety.

"Which of my friends did you talk to?" she asked.

"We spoke to Minako Aino," he answered.

"Oh, Minako-chan," she said. "Wasn't she with the others when you talked to her?"

"No," Ryuzaki explained. "She had gone home. Apparently, her mother fiercely scolded her and demanded that she call the police when she heard that Aino-san had been at the carnival tonight when the incident occurred. Once we received the call, we went to her house and Aino-san invited us in to interview her daughter." _She's quite clever_, Ryuzaki thought. _She doesn't believe my bluff._

_If he is lying_, Ami considered, _then he's definitely researched me and knows my friends, and if he has researched me, he selected the best one of my friends to pretend to have met, since Minako-chan posts so much personal information on the internet. _He even seemed aware of Minako's strained relationship with her mother, but he could have learned about that on her blog. But if he had gone that far, Ami thought, he must have investigated with incredible thoroughness – almost obsessive thoroughness. Given the relatively short period of time between the carnival incident and the present time, however, Ami figured that there would hardly be enough time for anyone to research her life and the lives of her friends so rapidly. It was likely, then, that he was telling the truth – but if he was not being honest, she considered, then it was quite likely that he was not a police officer at all. She rose, lifting her legs from the pool, and began moving toward the chair where she had left her towel.

If he was not a police officer, the likeliest possibility was that he was a new enemy, perhaps in disguise. This seemed highly unlikely, she figured as she wrapped the towel around her waist and sat down facing the young man. Indeed, he seemed harmless. He rose from the cement floor from his squat into a deep slouch, fixing his hands in his pockets.

"I would like to ask you a few questions regarding the events of earlier this evening," the young man requested.

"Of course," provided Ami. "But if you don't mind my asking, what is your name?"

"Hideki Ryuga," the man quickly replied.

"Hideki Ryuga?" she repeated. "Just like the idol! Minako-chan must have found that amusing!"

"She did very much," Ryuga remarked flatly.

Ami's hands quickly folded on her lap as she blushed in embarrassment. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to offend you."

"Not at all," assured Ryuga without any change of facial expression. "At any rate, earlier this evening, you were at the Spring Moon Carnival, correct?"

"Yes, that is correct."

"Did you happen to see what took place inside the magic show tent?"

Immediately, Ami took note of the ambiguity of the question. Given the phrasing, he could mean to ask whether or not she had merely seen the magic show or ask whether she had seen the battle with the magician and the surrounding incidents. If she admitted that she had seen the battle or the taking of the hostages by Rubeus, however, that would indicate that she was inside the show tent at the time. Apart from the police officers who entered the tent at the end of the battle, only a hostage or one of the Sailor Senshi could have seen what took place.

"No, I didn't see what happened inside the tent," she answered carefully and tersely, hoping that if Ryuga had indeed interviewed Minako, she had known enough to have lied about seeing anything.

"Did you see anything to indicate that something had occurred inside the tent?"

This ambiguous question, too, could have been troublesome, depending on how Minako had answered – again, if he had truly interviewed her. The most easily contrived lie, she figured, would be the best. "We were standing around some of the carnival stalls, and we saw bright flashes from the roof of the show tent. I wasn't sure what was going on," Ami lied. "Later, the police arrived and cleared the lot."

"I see," Ryuga said. "Who were you with when you saw those bright flashes?"

Ami could not control the spontaneous raising of her brow in surprise at this question, as she pushed wet hair away from her face. If he had indeed interviewed Minako, he would likely know the answer to this question; it seemed that this question was more likely a test of whether she was being deceptive rather than a probative inquiry. If she answered half-truthfully that she had been with Minako, it would incongruous with the situation: only if Minako were not with her at the time of the incident would it be important to interview Ami. Moreover, if he had interviewed Minako, Ami had no way of knowing how exactly Minako had lied about the situation, about how the group had divided. The only information Ryuga could derive from this question, Ami deduced, was whether she was lying about what happened.

Ryuga, whoever he was, was no fool. Ami quickly realized the importance of discovering whether or not Ryuga had in fact spoken with Minako.

"I was at the carnival with four friends. Our group had split up," she ambiguously explained. "After we saw the flashes, we met up again." She smiled politely and humoredly, feigning amusement. "When you spoke to Minako-chan, I hope Kimiko Aino-san didn't give you too hard of a time. She can be rude when there are strangers, or even friends of Minako-chan, around the house. Sometimes, when my friends and I are in Minako-chan's room, she'll shout down the hallway from the kitchen for us to be quiet, even if we aren't making any noise. Maybe she's just stressed out from working around the house."

_Clever_, thought Ryuzaki. _Very clever_.

The detective conceded silently that Mizuno made a cunning move. Earlier, he had revealed that he knew that Minako Aino and her mother had frequent conflicts. He could have known that simply from the preponderance of complaints about her mother that Aino had posted on the internet – and Mizuno undoubtedly knew this. There would be only two ways that he could know that Kimiko was not Minako Aino's mother's given name, however: either he actually met her in the process of interviewing her daughter, or he conducted quite thorough research into each of Ami Mizuno's friends. Ryuzaki had, in fact, discovered the name of Minako Aino's mother in the course of his research, but the second part of Mizuno's move could not be countered.

If he had indeed interviewed Minako Aino in her home, and he been familiar, at least in passing, with the layout of the Aino house. Ryuzaki was not at all familiar with the house, though, and had no way of knowing where Minako's room was in relation to the kitchen or whether there was even a hallway attached to the kitchen. It was likely that part or all of Mizuno's description of the house was false, but he could not bluff that he knew this and attempt to correct her, even if it would have been obvious to a police officer who had truly been in the house that the described layout was incorrect. Beside the difficulty of crafting a proper lie, it was obvious from the audacity of Mizuno's gambit that she was quite certain that he had approached her under false pretenses. Ryuzaki was duly impressed, and he had to hold back a broad grin from appearing on his face, though he very much wanted to express his pleasure with her abilities.

"She was not inhospitable," Ryuga commented, lying blatantly. "I will not keep you much longer, Mizuno-san. I have only one last question: did you happen to see anyone emerge from the show tent or enter the show tent after you saw those flashes of light from the roof?"

Ami paused for a moment in consideration, feigning deliberate recollection. Given his reaction, she was almost certain he had not in fact interviewed Minako; he was lying. For now, however, she had no way of knowing what this man wanted or why he had approached her. He clearly intended to conclude the conversation soon, though.

"No, I don't think so," she said, "but I wasn't looking for anyone entering or leaving."

"I see. Thank you very much," Ryuga said. "Have a good night."

Before she could reply, the young man had turned on the heel of his worn and weathered sneaker and begun walking to the exit, his hands still fixed in his pockets. As soon as he was out of the room, Ami darted for the locker room.

* * *

Hastily Ami spun the dial of her combination lock, opened the locker door, and reached into her jacket to fetch her phone. As she suspected, there were no missed calls or messages from Minako or anyone else, confirming her suspicion that Ryuga had not had any contact with her friends. Certainly, they would have tried to make contact with her if the police had tracked them down and interviewed them about the carnival incident. Figuring that the four others were likely still at Hikawa Shrine, she began to scroll through her contact list to call Rei when a realization suddenly stayed her hand.

Her phone's touch screen had been unlocked when she had removed it from her jacket pocket, and she was certain that she had locked it. Someone must have been in her locker. Racing through her memory, she recalled that she had left the dial of the lock pointed to the number "10", just as it had been when she had locked it – but her phone had undoubtedly been tampered with. Those two facts together suggested that whoever had been in her locker had meant to conceal the act but had probably slipped up and forgotten to relock the phone. Her heart sinking with nervousness, she dropped to her knees and opened her gym bag to make certain that her supercomputer and the Crystal Change Rod were secure. They sat idly and safely in her bag, and she knew that anyone who had seen the devices would not be able to connect them with her identity as Sailor Mercury without prior knowledge of what they were.

It then occurred to her that Hideki Ryuga had seen Sailor Mercury use the supercomputer at the carnival, and given his probing interest in her, it was likely Ryuga who had searched her locker.

An anxious rush of deductions fell through her mind like a cascading waterfall. Her conclusion struck her like an unexpected breaking ocean wave.

She snatched her belongings sloppily into her arms and bolted from the locker room.

Ami Mizuno burst from the door of the stairway and rushed into the lobby clutching her clothes and gym bag, still wearing her wet swimsuit, a towel crumpled over her shoulder. Weary and bleary-eyed, the receptionist was uncertain what was going on and snapped into alertness at the sudden noise of her entrance. She was fortunate, the young man in the white t-shirt and jeans was still in the lobby, reaching for the handle of the glass exit door.

"R-R-Ryuga-san!" she stutteringly cried out as she stumbled through the lobby with her armload of belongings. "Please wait!"

Turning to see Mizuno, Ryuga bore a countenance of shock to see her lurching toward him. He halted where he stood. When she reached him, she dropped her bag and clothes to the floor and began panting heavily, winded from sprinting down the stairs. Ryuga squatted and began collecting the belongings she had dropped.

"What is it, Mizuno-san?" asked Ryuga as he slung her clothes on the crook of his arm.

"I-I…," she began amid her panting, trailing off in the weight of her breathing. "I figured it out. I mean, I figure out who you-"

Ryuga silenced her with a gentle index finger placed against her lips and a whispered, "Shh…" The fingertip against her mouth startled her, and she froze, embarrassed and confused, in place. The thin flesh of the finger was warm.

He lifted the finger from her and said, "Not here. You should get dressed and meet me outside." Then he held out her clothes to her. She took them in awed silence and rushed to the locker rooms of the first floor.

* * *

When she was dried and dressed, Ryuga led Ami Mizuno outside the Sports Center and down the block. The streets were deserted and lit only by streetlamps and the headlights of infrequently passing vehicles, lazily or hastily working through the veins of Tokyo. At the corner the block waited Wedy, dressed tightly in leathers and sitting on her motorcycle. The pair, Ryuga and Mizuno, approached walking abreast of each other in a silent march. Through the visor of her helmet, Wedy studied their faces: Ryuga's as usual hung inscrutable and deceptitious, while Mizuno's was alert and shifting between softness and sternness.

"What's going on, Ryuzaki?" called out Wedy as the two of them neared. Mizuno's brow tightened hearing this new name for Ryuga.

"There is a café a few blocks from here," Ryuzaki began. "Miss Mizuno and I are going there to talk."

Confused but not wanting to bother questioning Ryuzaki, Wedy simply said, "Okay."

"You may go now. I will not need you for the rest of the night."

Wedy nodded, started her bike, and raced off into the street, the red of her taillight streaking into the cool night. Ami watched her vanish around a street corner, wondering who she was. Ryuzaki had spoken fluent English with her; she was grateful to have studied the language thoroughly, though she had been able to discern little from their small exchange except that she was a subordinate of Ryuzaki's. As she was caught in a pause of conjecture, the young man in the white t-shirt began walking again, and she hastened to follow.

He said nothing for the duration of their walk, and Ami, still somewhat bemused and unsure of whether she would be permitted to speak, kept quiet as well. With so few people walking the streets, the city seemed eerie, and as Ami knew little of the purpose of their walk, except that they were headed for a café, traversing the streets was surreal. She took to examining Ryuzaki's face in the periphery of her vision. His eyes were large and dark and seemed vacuous, but she knew well that despite appearances, he was indubitably alert. The emptiness of his expression was that of a wax sculpture come alive; something about him seemed unreal, an impenetrable enigma.

Finally, they arrived at their destination: a homey café furnished with finely finished wooden tables and cushioned seats, lit with warm hanging overhead lights. The waiters and waitresses, Ami saw, were dressed smartly in neat formal attire. Only a few people occupied the seats, all of whom were dressed well in suits and ties or dresses – or at least button-front shirts. First, Ami realized that this establishment was rather fancy and probably pricey; second, Ami realized how completely underdressed they were. Her hair was still sloppily wet from the pool, and she was dressed for an outing at a carnival, not a late dinner at an upscale café. Ryuzaki, too, was underdressed, though he appeared nonplussed, and as he introduced himself to a waitress with the name Akechi, they were immediately brought to a table in the rear, around which no other tables were occupied. They sat in privacy, out of earshot of the other patrons. It was clear to Ami that Ryuzaki had prepared this – though she did not know how far in advance or how thoroughly he had planned it.

Ami sat quietly with her hands folded on her lap, waiting for Ryuzaki to speak first. He took a moment to remove his sneakers and assume a squat on the cushioned seat, resting his hands on his raised knees. When a waitress arrived, Ryuzaki ordered a cup of coffee and a slice of cake for himself. Ami quietly asked for a cup of tea. The two waited wordlessly for the food and drink to arrive. Then, looking her dead in the eyes, Ryuzaki began:

"I hope that you do not mind my bringing you here, but it is far better to speak here than on the street or at the Sports Center. You will also have to forgive my behavior at the Sports Center. I promise to explain the entirety of the situation to you, but for now please tell me what you have deduced."

Nervousness took hold of Ami, and she stuttered at first, making only inarticulate sounds with her mouth. She shut her eyes and took a breath of air before beginning again. "When we talked at the pool, I suspected that you weren't a police officer and that you hadn't actually spoken with my friend Minako-chan. There didn't seem to be any way for the police to have found me or my friends, even though we were at the carnival; we hadn't left our names anywhere. Nevertheless, you had tracked me down.

"You asked me which of my friends I had been with at the time we saw lights shoot from the roof of the carnival tent, but that question was unimportant to what a police investigator would have normally been interested in. Rather, it could only have been a test to see if I was lying – provided that you had indeed interviewed Minako-chan. If you hadn't, then you had no way of knowing whether I was lying or not, and if you hadn't spoken with her, your intentions were probably different from what you had told me anyway. The way I answered the question, however, could have been used to learn more about what I thought your intentions were.

"I tested you by using a false given name when I mentioned Minako-chan's mother, and I made an impossible claim that she often shouted at us through a hallway joining the kitchen, when in fact the layout of the house was different, and you would have been sure to have noticed this if you had really been inside the house. If you were a police officer and had interviewed Minako-chan, you would have been introduced to her mother and would have known her given name. If you were not a police officer, you might have known her given name the same way you knew that Minako-chan is my friend, but you could not have known the layout of the house if you had never been there. To have corrected the name but not the obvious layout mistake would have been odd for an observant police detective. You corrected neither detail, so I further suspected that you had not met with Minako-chan. I would know for certain that you did not when I checked my phone later and found no missed calls or messages from her.

"My phone was the biggest clue, though it wasn't the lack of calls or messages that gave me the most important piece of information. When I got to my locker, the combination lock dial was pointing to the same number I had left it on when I had gone to the pool, but my phone, which was inside the locker, had been tampered with: the screen was unlocked when I pulled it from my pocket, despite the fact I had locked it before leaving it there. The screen locks with a passcode when the sleep button is pressed, and only I know the passcode.

"Opening the combination lock isn't terribly difficult for someone skilled with locks or someone who knows that the serial number on the back of the lock corresponds with the combination. There was, however, one person who could have also known the passcode and might have had a reason to look in my locker."

At this point, Ryuzaki interrupted her. "Amazing," he said. "Your deductive powers are indeed as prodigious as I thought, and you are, in fact, much swifter in your reasoning than I expected. At any rate, you say that one person could have known the passcode and may have had a reason to search your locker. Who is this person? And why would he or she search your locker?"

Ami's brow tightened. "The answer to the first question should be obvious to you."

"Yes, indeed," conceded Ryuzaki, "but for the sake of my testing your deductive abilities, please explain how it is possible for this person to have known the passcode."

"A person whose face I'd never seen – whose face I _thought_ I'd never seen – had an opportunity to watch me once as I typed in the passcode. He would have had to have memorized the sequence of gestures I used. Only that person could have known the passcode, apart from my friends who have also seen me unlock my phone but would have had no reason to search my locker and were not present at the Sports Center. You must have-"

Ryuzaki interrupted again. "Please, but why would this person have any reason to search your locker?"

"That person was looking to confirm a theory," she said with increasing nervousness.

"What theory?"

Ami breathed and allowed herself to relax, not in surrender but in acceptance of both the situation and of her logic. "A theory about who I am. You were at the carnival, which means you saw me with the supercomputer. You must have seen me enter the show tent, though I didn't see you. You must have known what I looked like and known my name. Since I had entered the show tent, I would have been kidnapped by the magician – but I wasn't among the people rescued, and working with the police, you could have known that. No one entered or left the show tent once the incident began…. So you must have deduced my identity based the absence my friends and me from those rescued from the tent. And you found the supercomputer in my locker, confirming the theory…."

"That is correct, Sailor Mercury," said Ryuzaki.

"But in order for you to have known that it was me that entered the tent, in order for you to have known what I look like and my name, you must have known me previously. Furthermore, you must have been the one to have seen me enter the passcode of my phone. That means-"

"Correct again, Mizuno-san," Ryuzaki admitted. "I am L."

He took a long sip of coffee, into which he had been dropping sugar cubes throughout their talk.

"Through our brief period working together on the Kira investigation, I found it increasingly apparent that your deductive skills were exceptional. Because the other members of the task force did not approve of my bringing you aboard the task force, however, I was reluctant at first to involve you directly, but it was clear to me after some time that I could not afford to keep you off the case – provided you were interested in assisting us, of course. In all our discussions, you seemed quite interested in the case and interested in bringing Kira to justice, so my hesitation vanished. Unlike the task force, however, you had been working with me from a distance, and I felt it would be far better for us to work together in person, as I do with the task force now. Before I did that, however, I felt the need to test your skills one last time, in a live exercise.

"My initial interview with you was intended to give you an opportunity to be alerted to the mendacity of my cover story, but any clues you gleaned in that encounter were inconclusive. You not only managed to see through my ruse, but you delivered a swift counterattack. I purposefully left your phone unlocked in order to give you a decisive clue, and again you did not disappoint. You perceived the sign immediately and fully deduced the situation. I am impressed.

"Moreover, your abilities as Sailor Mercury could provide a great asset to the team – though I would rather the other members of the task force not know your identity.

"Given your amazing mental abilities, however, I would like to invite you to join the task force properly, in person. I am in charge of the investigation, and the other members of the team will accept your presence if you accept the offer."

Overwhelmed with bemusement, Ami folded her arms against the surface of the table. "I- I need to think about it. May I please get back to you later?"

"Yes, you may," Ryuzaki allowed, "but please do not take too long to decide."

"I have a question," Ami stated meekly.

"Yes?"

"How did you find me?" she began, her cheeks flushing a slight red. "I mean, we met outside the café that time, but you didn't learn my name. I'm guessing that's how you found out about me, but I don't know how you managed to learn my name and who I am."

After taking another slurp of coffee, Ryuzaki answered, "I used a traffic camera to learn the license plate number of your friend Haruka Tenoh's car. From that, I was able to find her name. Then, using various channels of information, mostly online, I was able to learn your name from social networking. From there, it was not difficult to learn more about a person of such profound intellect, as you have made quite an impression already on the academic community."

"But then," Ami said slowly and quietly, still blushing, "you contacted me through the writing site and asked to play chess. Was that another test of my abilities?"

"No, not quite," Ryuzaki replied. "It was a test of your abilities, but not in the same sense that this live exercise was. It was more of a way of getting in touch with you, I suppose." He spoke much more slowly than before as he explained this, and he cocked his head and pressed a thumb to his lips, as if contemplating the truth of his own statements.

"So you weren't scouting me as an investigator when we played those games that night?"

"No, I merely thought it would be nice to get to know someone with such intelligence," Ryuzaki admitted, "and… I very much liked your poetry."


	7. Divination

Divination

A cool and damp breeze drifted lazily through the open window in the bedroom of Ami Mizuno. It washed over her face as she lay in bed, and though it did her no great discomfort, she tossed onto her side and pulled her duvet closer around her body. In the dark of her room the battery indicator light on her laptop shone starkly green. Her eyes locked on it as she replayed in her mind the events of the evening: the fight with a reincarnated foe, the meeting of the great detective L. The night had been compact with consternation and action, and now, though she had ample time to rest, the weight of tiredness was insufficient to draw her into sleep.

To her embarrassment, she had grown tired in the café after speaking with L until the early morning hours. After catching herself yawning, she had meekly said at the table that she would very much have liked to stay and talk some more, but that she needed to go home, to sleep and to consider his offer of bringing her aboard the task force. Ryuzaki's face had gently and slightly sunk, his disappointment barely cognizable. His eyes had simply drifted downward to his coffee and narrowed, and his lips fell just slightly limper. Ryuzaki had hardly changed expressions through the night, and Ami had been struggling to pay attention to the small variations of his face. The emotion had appeared briefly and vanished from his face, as if he had squelched the feeling before it could entirely surface. Through only these tiniest of signs, his disappointment had been palpable. Reading him was like watching the surface of a lake for the smallest bubbles to rise and become visible to guess at what might swim deep below, near the muddy bottom.

Though growing sleepy, Ami had felt her heartbeat grow swifter as she watched the great detective quietly drop another sugar cube into his cup before looking away. An inarticulate anxiety had swept over her. Even in her tiredness she had felt that disappointing L was a foible of enormous gravity. Her mind had grown foggy, but she had become acutely aware of her heart – the way that it seemed to stammer, as it sometimes did before a battle. It had seemed as if there were something valuable at stake, and she had possibly lost it. What it was that might have been lost, she could not name. She had felt her cheeks flush and her shoulders shyly pull inward as she looked up at Ryuzaki to find his face blank but alert. But for that brief moment of disappointment, he seemed unabashed; he did not even appear tired, despite the hour. His silence and the almost-inhuman alertness he still possessed, while her mental faculties had diminished from too many waking hours, had emphasized the gulf of distance between them.

She thought of it now, as she rolled onto her back and allowed another breeze to sweep across her face. In the café, she had felt vulnerable in the face of a nearly impenetrable enigma. Even now, she felt it – as if still under Ryuzaki's scrutiny and desperately wanting not to let him down. He had put faith in her; he had high expectations of her, high enough that he wanted to work directly with her.

Lying in bed with her eyes half-open, she recalled the car ride home. Ryuzaki's assistant Watari, whom she had met in the park, had turned out to be a quiet English gentleman. He arrived a few minutes after Ryuzaki's call, in a classic limousine. In the backseat, they sat together silently as the dark, mostly-deserted streets of Tokyo drifted by them outside. Under the burden of somnolence, she had let her eyelids lower but not shut and head begin to softly sink toward the window. Outside, through her bleary eyes, she had seen the indistinct lights of streetlamps they passed.

"Mizuno-san?" she had heard Ryuzaki softly say.

Turning her head and struggling to open her eyes, she had seen Ryuzaki squatting on the seat beside her. His face had been relaxed and blank, but his eyes were wide with curiosity.

"You must be very tired," he had said, "but there is something I wanted to ask you. We were occupied talking about the investigation, so this question would have seemed irrelevant."

"Sure," she had replied sleepily. With a soft smile, she continued, "I can't promise I won't fall asleep before I answer it, though."

Tiredness had lowered her inhibitions to allow her to joke with the world's greatest detective. Just as she had realized, to her mild embarrassment, that this was the first time she had allowed herself to be so casual with him, a grin formed on the face of L.

"I promise I will not keep you awake for long," he said smilingly. Slowly then his slight countenance of curiosity had reformed on his face. "You wrote a poem styled in a form similar to _renga_, though you wrote it alone. In it, you wrote about gazing into the distance from windows and from the roof of a building. It contained fourteen stanzas, which is atypical of _renga_. I noticed that in addition to the typical juxtapositions and turns of _renga_, there was a shift of mood in the final two stanzas. I could not help but wonder, did you do this in the style of a Shakespearean sonnet? If each stanza were treated as a line, there would be fourteen lines as in a sonnet – and the final couplet would contain the turn."

His face had remained patient and inquisitive. As Ryuzaki had spoken, Ami's mind had grown momentarily more awake, and she had felt her heartbeat grow rapid once again. A timid smile took shape.

"You're the only one who's ever noticed that."

A moment had passed, during which neither L nor Ami spoke a word. Watari had brought the car to a halt at a stoplight. Feeling heat in her cheeks, the blue-haired girl could not take her eyes off the blank face of L. The shadow of his hair over his face had been unbroken by the light from the streetlamp outside the window, but she could see his dark eyes, locked with hers.

"This will be my final question for the night. I promise." His face had been still. "In the final couplet, you wrote,

But if I grind lenses

to gaze into the distance

in perfect focus

will the shapes I see

in the clouds and in the tops of trees

remain the beautiful things I imagine?"

These lines recited unhesitatingly from memory, he had paused briefly and pressed a thumb to his lips. "I very much like these lines. But I wonder about this small detail: Is the reference to lens grinding an allusion to Spinoza?"

"Yes, it is." The shy, pleased smile had reappeared on Ami's face.

"I thought so." Likewise, the slight, but mirthful grin had grown again on L's face.

Ami's anxiety had been replaced by a soft warmth in her chest. The spreading comfort had lulled her again into pleasant, content sleepiness. In the silence, Ryuzaki had turned to gaze out of the window, the grin gone as quickly as it arrived. Dreamily, she had wished she could look on that smile again. But for the time, she had simply savored the glowing feeling inside herself and allowed her eyes to close. When she next opened them, it had been to the feeling of a bony hand on her shoulder and to the voice of Ryuzaki telling her they had arrived at her home.

In bed, she smiled as she thought of Ryuzaki slowly speaking the lines of her poem. In spite of his aloofness, his apparent listlessness, Ami was convinced that there existed an effulgence beneath the pale curtain of his exterior. She had, she thought, glimpsed it.

There seemed to exist a distance between Ryuzaki and other people. The distance between him and others was so great that it might have been truly insurmountable – or perhaps it was simply that no one had been permitted to grow close to him. Whether knowingly or unknowingly, he had scaled a mountain to its summit, at which no one could reach him or had reached him. He sat at the zenith, observing the human world through the mist and clouds, like a sequestered monk whose memories of the world below had long since faded – or perhaps like a dejected god who had assumed the form of a human and descended into the lower realm, only to find he had no place among the people there after all. Ami wanted to overcome that distance, to climb the mountain and meet him at the peak. To know him would be to know a warmth and beauty unknown to any other.

Joining the Kira investigation for the purpose of being close to L was a potent temptation – but Ami knew such a personal motivation was not a sound reason for embarking on such a dangerous and serious task. When they spoke at the café, L had admonished her that she should only accept his invitation if she could commit to risking her life to catch Kira. Her fingers tightly took hold of her bed covers, and she curled her body into a ball, feeling ashamed of her thoughts. Her interest in the world's greatest detective was irrational; endangering her life merely to indulge her curiosity would not only be reckless, but stupid. It would be silly and childish. She shut her eyes against the small pools of tears welling in each of them.

Moreover, who was she to think that she could get close to L? The identity of the world's greatest detective had remained unknown to nearly everyone in the world until this investigation into the Kira killings. The only reason L had revealed himself to her was that he thought she could provide assistance.

But then there were the games and riddles they had played; there was Ryuzaki reciting her poetry from memory. There was the slight but extant smile that grew on his mouth sometimes. Under her ribs, she could feel a fluttering when she recalled these things, what may have seemed like paltry quotidian but to her were sources of both pleasure and solicitude. It pleased her to imagine the mind of L occupied with thoughts of her. And it consternated her to think that her fantasies were merely vagaries, a trick she played on herself to feel wanted – to feel as if there were someone whom she could share those of her thoughts which eluded the understanding of her friends, to feel as if she were not alone. It was, however, unlikely to be as her whimsy would have it. Such was the artifice of her yearning; she was full of false hope. Unable to bear the falsity of it, she tossed again and again against her mattress.

* * *

_She is everything I hoped for_, reflected the young detective as he entered the main chamber of task force headquarters, with one hand in a pocket and the thumb of the other hand raised to his lips. _She is versatile; she is knowledgeable and canny_, he summarized in his mind. _It will demand little of her to learn the skills of investigation. Already she knows how to gather and synthesize information. It is evident in her academic work and her ability to solve puzzles, riddles, and the cases I presented to her – and it is evident in her poetry. Beautiful poetry._

As he kicked his sneakers into the corner near the elevator doors, he considered the probability that she would accept his invitation. Given that she had already been willing to give her assistance, it seemed to Ryuzaki that the likelihood was high. In the past several months of investigating, however, it had become especially salient to him that judgments made under the load of emotions could not be fully trusted. Now, as he estimated the likelihood that Ami Mizuno would join the task force, he could not ignore the returning feeling of hollowness in his chest and the subtle dryness of his mouth. This sensation, so alien to him when it first appeared, had become a staple of these last days. After the episode at the carnival, it had diminished. After Mizuno had wearily – but smilingly – exited the limousine and entered her apartment building, the feeling had returned. Now as he arrived again at headquarters, it had worsened; he felt skeletal, as if under his skin and bones were merely cold and unlit space.

The room, he saw, was dark except for the glow of the computer screen in front of Light Yagami, the only member of the task force who remained awake at this hour. In the shadowy corner of the room, the shinigami stood idly but ominously. The other members of the team were, as typical for this hour, desolately asleep around the room, on the couches and chairs. The luminance of the computer haloed Light as if he were in a spotlight. In his seat, he turned around to look at Ryuzaki across the room.

"Ryuzaki," he said sharply but quietly.

The detective walked toward the computers with his hands in his pockets. "Yagami-kun, you are usually asleep by now."

"With my sister in the hospital, I couldn't sleep," he answered. "My father is with her now. I thought I'd take advantage of my restlessness and work on the case, but I can hardly concentrate. Not only that, but there isn't much to work with at the moment."

As Light spoke, Ryuzaki climbed into a nearby chair and squatted on the seat. "That is not entirely true." The young detective switched on the monitor of a sleeping computer. With a few swift clicks, he opened some image archives and directories of documents. "Though there has been little new evidence since Higuchi's death, there remains a large amount of old evidence to review in light of the discovery of the method of killing."

The eyes of Light Yagami narrowed slightly as he struggled to contain his anger and resentment of Ryuzaki. The detective having elided his careful planning to kill him was infuriating enough without the added insult of his nonchalance as he declared that he would reexamine old evidence. Light knew well that Ryuzaki had already considered the previous evidence; they were mutually aware of the conclusion that the only existing evidence that exonerated Misa and Light was the fake thirteen-day rule written in the notebook. He quelled his frustration with the self-admonishment that he could not afford any mistakes; all he would need was patience for his new plan to come to fruition. It was merely a matter of time before L would be dead.

Reassuring himself of this fact, he quickly shifted his attention to a more immediate concern: Would Light Yagami, a dedicated investigator, press the issue of the past evidence now? He knew the course the conversation would take if he asked Ryuzaki's thoughts. After discussing the possible dubiousness of the thirteen-day rule, the aloof detective would declare that the evidence would once again suggest that Light and Misa were Kira and Second Kira respectively.

Light stood from his seat and stretched his arms over his head. "Discussing the evidence will have to wait, I think," he yawned. "I'm exhausted. It's about time I tried to sleep again. But first, I have something to ask you." Abruptly, his demeanor had shifted from mellow to seriously attentive. "Why did you really go to that carnival? And where were you tonight? No one knew where you had gone. Watari only said that you would be back later in the night."

His hands softly cupping his knees and his eyes firmly fixed on the computer screen in front of him, for a moment, the detective made no reply. Unmoving and silent, he deliberated before saying, "I went to see Mizuno-san."

Though genuinely fatigued, Light snapped to alertness. "You did what?" he nearly shouted in unfeigned disbelief. "You mean you went to see her in person? You met her face to face?"

"That is what I mean." Finally he paused his examination of several images on his screen and turned to look on the dumbstruck face of Light.

"Does she know who you are?"

"She was able to deduce my identity, yes," he equivocated.

Light grew stern. "What you mean," he began flatly, "is that you told her enough that she could figure it out."

"The danger of her knowing my identity is minimal, Yagami-kun," explained Ryuzaki. "She is trustworthy, and as I told you and the others, there is no chance that she is Kira."

"Even if she is not Kira, revealing your identity to anyone is dangerous – potentially deadly." He leaned on the desk and brought his face level with Ryuzaki's. "You put not only your own life in danger but the lives of everyone on the task force. Why on earth did you do this?"

Undaunted by Light's pugnacity and impatience, the young detective unblinkingly and unflinchingly stared into his dark, somewhat-bloodshot eyes. "Yagami-kun, you exaggerate," he dismissed. "Mizuno-san is of much more benefit to this investigation than she is a risk. Indeed, that is why I invited her to join us."

"You asked her to come here? You're seriously bringing a high school girl onto the task force? You're going to let a young girl risk her life! For what?" The volume of Light's voice was becoming less restrained. His perplexity was, like his surprise and disbelief, unfeigned. Though he played up his outrage, Light's confusion was true; he had no idea what had prompted Ryuzaki to ask Mizuno to join the team – or what had prompted him to get in contact with her in the first place. Perhaps, he considered, it was a tactic to keep him off balance: Ryuzaki would make bold, unpredictable moves in the hope that Light would make an error and reveal himself.

_No_, he rethought, _that doesn't make sense. Ryuzaki is desperate but not stupid; it isn't his style to be so imprecise or to simply hope that I'll make a mistake. Then what is it? What advantage did this girl offer?_ He thought back to the dossier Ryuzaki had prepared, containing a thorough biography of her. She had a profound intellect, he recalled, and showed interest in helping others. _Could that be it? He's already accounted for the possibility of his death; he suspects that I'll try to kill him soon. While we were investigating Yotsuba, he hypothesized that I might kill him and assume his role as L. Is he brining this girl onto the task force so that I won't be the only one who can fill the position of L?_

_That's sloppy, Ryuzaki_, Light taunted L in his mind._ My father and the task force won't be so quick to trust her. When you die, I'll still be the natural successor to you. You've already taken safeguards to ensure that I can't kill you yet, but when I can, you'll pay for being so careless. _His face betraying none of his thoughts, his insular smugness abated and was replaced by circumspection. _Nevertheless, you have something in mind regarding this girl. If she does agree to join the task force, I'll have no choice._

"I asked her to join the task force," Ryuzaki explained, "because, like you, she is intellectually gifted and motivated by a powerful sense of justice. She will be an important asset in the future, especially as this case becomes more complicated."

"What do you mean, 'more complicated?'"

"If I'm right, we will receive important new evidence in the next few days." Ryuzaki stood and meandered toward a pot of lukewarm coffee sitting on one of the tables, amid printed documents and handwritten notes. "When that happens, she will be very useful," he cryptically continued as he stuck his finger in the black liquid to check its temperature.

"And if you're wrong?" asked Light with an undercurrent of scorn.

"Then it will nonetheless be pleasant to have her around," Ryuzaki replied. "And helpful," he added quickly.

* * *

It was morning, and sunlight was easing its way through the bedroom window like a slow warm tide. Her eyes still closed, Haruka Tenoh rolled languorously from her right side to her left, and her hands gently searched the sheets beside her. She was disappointed that her fingers found only tussled silk and a pillow.

"Michiru?"

Finally she opened her eyes and confirmed what her groping through the bed covers had told her. Groaning lightly in solitude, she rose, pitched a shirt across her shoulders from the closet, and emerged from the bedroom into the living room while doing up the buttons. Michiru was lounging on the sofa, dreamily sketching in a pad of paper. As Haruka entered, she smiled without taking her eyes of her nascent drawing.

"You're awake," she said softly.

"There's nothing quite as refreshing as waking up alone," Haruka teased sarcastically.

"Don't be like that." She looked up at Haruka with a playful grin. "You were so tired last night, so I thought I'd let the sun wake you."

Haruka leaned on the sofa-back, looking at the girl with sea-green hair from above. "The sunrise through the window is dreary if I wake up without you next to me."

Michiru could not resist an airy giggle. "Ooh, were you saving that line until the time was right?" she said smirkingly. "Or did you think that up just now?"

Haruka stood and folded her arms across her chest. "Hey, hey – if I told you how I do everything, I'd be pretty boring."

"You would be," Michiru facetiously agreed as she shut her sketchpad and placed it on the end table. "Now go and get dressed. You can't go out if you aren't wearing pants."

"I could," insisted Haruka, walking back toward the bedroom, "but you wouldn't let me."

In a few moments, after Haruka was properly attired, the pair strolled out of their apartment to the garage where they kept Haruka's cars. They drove the Mazda with the top down in the fresh spring air, bound for a little café they knew in the Minato Ward. They would eat breakfast there, and the rest of the day would likewise be spent in leisure. For the time, they were free from obligations. Such liberty permitted them to pass the hours whimsically. It would be a fine day for a drive out to Ueno Park, Haruka mused as she drove. Michiru could bring her violin. To listen to her play sonatas and to sit under the _sakura_ trees would be a day well used.

The sky was clear; the sun was warm and placid. The drive was easy and pleasant. For several minutes they drove, both of them quiet but occasionally glancing at the other with an attentive smile. There were only a few blocks from their destination when a cold, stark breeze blew across them as they were halted at a stoplight. Haruka swallowed hard, and when the light changed, she crossed the intersection and abruptly parked the car beside the curb. With a quick gesture, she deadened the engine. The wind was gone, but the sensation it carried remained, heavy on her shoulders and constrictive in her stomach. She looked gravely at Michiru, who stared back, unsurprised that they had stopped.

"I felt it, too."

"The wind is rustling."

"The sea is stormy."

* * *

In a small bookshop along the bus route that led to Hikawa Shrine, Ami ran her finger along the spines of old used books. Though it was only the middle of the afternoon, she already felt drained. The lack of sleep from last night had caught up with her. Her meeting with Ryuzaki had occupied her thoughts since the night before; they had unremittingly distracted her. She checked her watch for the time. In a few minutes, she would have to leave for the shrine, for the regular study group with the others. The last time she had seen or spoken to her friends had been last night at the carnival, and it felt as if a week had passed since then. Though it had only been a single day, the thoughts of Ryuzaki and his invitation weighed on her mind like a sack of bricks on her back. She wanted urgently to tell her friends what had happened – everything that had happened since L had first contacted her up until last night – but Ryuzaki had insisted that she tell no one, that it was unsafe to do so. This stipulation added to her mounting anxieties, alienating her from her friends, with whom she trusted nearly everything; the burden of deciding what to do could not be shared.

Loneliness washed over her like a cold rain as she drew a book from the shelf, approached the counter, and paid for it. Her head hanging low in tiredness, she made for the bus stop from which she could ride to the shrine. With a handful of strangers, she stood on the sidewalk, silent and pensive. Wearily she looked up at the sky, in which a large cloud moved in front of the sun. The street grew momentarily dimmer under the shadow of the cloud. _What should I do?_ she asked of herself again, not expecting an answer. She had asked herself this question throughout the day, and she felt no closer to an answer than she had felt in bed in the early morning as she tried futilely to sleep.

With calamitous suddenness, her thoughts were interrupted by a sharp, dry yell from the young man standing next to her. She gasped as she saw him clutch at his chest through his sweatshirt and doubled over. The other people waiting for the bus were shocked at the sight. Crumpling under the pain that seemed to overtake him, the man dropped to his knees, then onto his side. _A heart attack?_ thought Ami, crouching to examine the man. _No… it couldn't be…._

"Are you all right?" Ami asked urgently. The man did not answer; he only writhed in pain and struggled to scream between labored breaths. Afraid, she pulled her phone from her bag. "I'll call an ambulance! Hold on, please!"

As the other people at the bus stop stepped back to form a semicircle of confusion and consternation, the man rolled onto his back, still grasping at his chest. "D-d-damn you, Kira!" he rasped. Before Ami could dial the number for an ambulance, the man exhaled quickly and bluntly and ceased to move. His eyes stared dumbly through the glass overhang of the bus stop shelter. Stunned silence overtook the small crowd of people.

Ami's eyes began to water, as her fear began to melt into panic. The phone fell away from her hand. _No, no, no…!_ Her trembling fingers reached for his neck to find a pulse, but his arteries were as still as a puddle after a rainstorm. "Someone call for help!" she cried. Terrified but determined, she locked her hands over the man's unmoving chest, and she desperately began compressions to resuscitate him. As she threw her weight onto his body to restore his heartbeat, in the corner of her eye she saw the handle of a pistol peeking out from the waistband of his pants. The man remained still but for Ami's forceful attempts to keep him alive. _No, please…. I don't care how bad you were. I don't care what you did… Don't die!_

Her eyes were locked on the man's chest, but from above she could hear someone on the phone. The voice was cold and quiet. "A man just had a heart attack at a bus stop."

Though she had been attempting to resuscitate him for only less than a minute, Ami could feel her shoulders aching. She was panting from the strain of trying to work the heart of another person. Her own heart was pounding like a frantic drum roll.

"I think it's Kira," said the man calling an ambulance. He then added softly, "No, sir, I don't think you have to hurry."

Nearly two minutes passed before Ami, exhausted, fell backward onto her hands in surrender. The sound of sirens rang in the distance; an ambulance was drawing near. Nervously and quietly the other people stood by and looked at the unmoving, prone man and the blue-haired girl, whose breathing was labored and stammering. Her face was slick with sweat, her eyes bleary and tearful. She could do nothing. The man was dead.

* * *

Task force headquarters was quiet and tense. In the wake of Higuchi's death and the reemergence of the Kira killings, there was a sense of frustration and perplexity shared by most of the team members. Though they had won an unprecedented victory in obtaining the notebook, the murders had not ceased. More and more, the investigation felt like chasing one's own shadow.

The team occupied themselves with perhaps Sisyphean work. Mogi, Aizawa, and Ide gathered around a table, examining documents on the latest victims of Kira. Occasionally, they would exchange pithy observations, but they produced no leads. Soichiro Yagami sat in front of a large computer monitor, diligently creating an electronic map of the murders. He expected nothing to arise from this effort, but it was, for the moment, his only idea. Matsuda had just given up a search through innumerable financial records, and he now excused himself to use the restroom. Sitting beside Ryuzaki, Light examined the pages of the notebook, pretending to closely scrutinize of the causes and times of death of Kira's victims. L himself typed an email to Watari to make a request.

Before Ryuzaki could send his message, the computer beside him lit up with the Old English monogram of W. "Ryuzaki," the voice of Watari began, "we are receiving a call on the private line you requested that I install."

"Good," replied Ryuzaki. "Please forward the call to my phone."

This call drew the attention of Light and the others, who knew nothing of a special phone line. In the midst of their dull and discouraging work, this call Ryuzaki received jarred them from their present discouragement. Did the detective have new information? How did he obtain it? The disheveled young man rose from his seat and raised his cell phone to his ear. The others watched him and listened to his side of the conversation in hopeful anticipation.

"Hello, Mizuno-san."

Hearing this name would have brought a scowl to Light's face had he not effortfully restrained himself.

"You're made a decision?" he said with a small, but fleeting smile, which vanished and was replaced by a subtle expression of concern. "You sound distressed."

_Distressed? What's going on here?_ Light was uncertain what might have distressed Mizuno and whether it was related to the case. To keep up his appearance, he sublimated his growing worry into apparent interest and curiosity.

"I understand. Nevertheless, I am glad to hear from you. We can discuss what is troubling you when you arrive. I assume you remember the address that I- You're outside right now?" With his phone still pressed to his ear, Ryuzaki moved to his computer and brought up a screen with the surveillance camera feeds from outside the building. "I see. Please walk down into the parking garage and proceed to the elevator there. You will have to pass through security."

Upon hearing what Ryuzaki was instructing Mizuno to do, Soichiro Yagami bolted to his feet. "Ryuzaki, does this mean that girl is coming here? Now? What's going on?"

"Good," said Ryuzaki into his phone. "I will see you in a few minutes." He then turned to Soichiro, who wore a look of shock and confusion on his face. "Yes, Mizuno-san is here. She will be joining us shortly."


End file.
